» 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE 


W  O  R  K  S 


OF 


THE    RIGHT    HONORABLE 


EDMUI^D    BURKE. 


FOURTH    EDITION. 


VOL.     II. 


BOSTON: 
LITTLE,   BROWN,   AND    COMPANY. 

1871. 


CAMBRIDGH. 
PRESSWORK    BY   JOHN    WILSON    AND   SON. 


PR 

CONTENTS    OF    VOL.   11. 


— •— 

Pagb 

Speech  on  American  Taxation,  April  19,  1774      .  "      ,         I 

Speeches  on  Arrival  at  Bristol  and  at  the  Conclu- 
sion OF  THE  Poll,  October  13  and  November  3,  1774      .       81 

Speech  on  moving  Resolutions  for  Conciliation  with 

America,  March  22,  1775 99 

Letter  to  the  Sheriffs  of  Bristol,  on  the  Affairs 
OF  America,  April  3,  1777 187 

Two  Letters  to  Gentlemen  of  Bristol,  on  the  Bills 
depending  in  Parliament  relative  to  the  Trade 
of  Ireland,  April  23  and  May  2,  1778    .         .         .         .247 

Speech  on  presenting  to  the  House  of  Commons  a 
Plan  for  the  Better  Security  of  the  Indepen- 
dence of  Parliament,  and  the  Economical  Refor- 
mation of  the  Civil  and  other  Establishments, 
February  11,  1780 265 

Speech  at  Bristol  previous  to  the  Election,  Septem- 
ber 6,   1780      365 

Speech  at  Bristol  on  declining  the  Poll,  Septem- 
ber 9,   1780 425 

Speech  on  Mr.  Fox's  East  India  Bill,  December  1,  1783      431 

A  Representation  to  his  Majesty,  moved  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  June  14,  1784        ....     537 


SPEECH 


ON 


AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

April  19,  1774. 


VOL.  II. 


PREFACE. 


TTIHE  following  speech  has  been  much  the  sub- 
jL  ject  of  conversation,  and  the  desire  of  having  it 
printed  was  last  summer  very  general.  The  means 
of  gratifying  the  public  curiosity  were  obligingly  fiu'- 
nished  from  the  notes  of  some  gentlemen,  members 
of  the  last  Parliament. 

This  piece  has  been  for  some  months  ready  for  the 
press.  But  a  delicacy,  possibly  over-scrupulous,  has 
delayed  the  publication  to  this  time.  The  friends  of 
administration  have  been  used  to  attribute  a  great 
deal  of  the  opposition  to  their  measures  in  America 
to  the  writings  published  in  England.  The  editor  of 
this  speech  kept  it  back,  until  all  the  measures  of 
government  have  had  their  full  operation,  and  can  be 
no  longer  affected,  if  ever  they  could  have  been  affect- 
ed, by  any  publication. 

Most  readers  will  recollect  the  uncommon  pains 
taken  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  session  of  the  last 
Parliament,  and  indeed  during  the  whole  course  of  it, 
to  asperse  the  characters  and  decry  the  measures  of 
those  who  were  supposed  to  be  friends  to  America, 
in  order  to  weaken  the  effect  of  tlieir  opposition  to 
the  acts  of  rigor  then  preparing  against  the  colonies. 
The  speech  contains  a  full  refutation  of  the  charges 
against  that  party  with  which  Mr.  Burke  has  all 
along  acted.     In  doing  this,  he  has  taken  a  review  of 


4  PEEFACE. 

the  effects  of  all  the  schemes  which  have  been  succes- 
sively adopted  in  the  government  of  the  plantations. 
The  subject  is  interesting ;  the  matters  of  informa- 
tion various  and  important ;  and  the  publication  at 
this  time,  the  editor  hopes,  will  not  be  thought  un- 
seasonable. 


SPEECH. 


During  the  last  session  of  the  last  Parliament,  on  the 
19th  of  April,  1774,  Mr.  Rose  Fuller,  member  for  Rye, 
made  the  followius;  motion  :  — 

"  That  an  act  made  in  the  seventh  year  of  the  reign  of 
his  present  Majesty,  intituled,  '  An  act  for  granting  certain 
duties  in  the  British  colonies  and  plantations  in  America ; 
for  allowing  a  drawback  of  the  duties  of  customs  upon  the 
exportation  from  this  kingdom  of  coffee  and  cocoa-nuts,  of 
the  produce  of  the  said  colonies  or  plantations ;  for  discon- 
tinuing the  drawbacks  payable  on  china  earthenware  ex- 
ported to  America ;  and  for  more  effectually  preventing  the 
clandestine  running  of  goods  in  the  said  colonies  and  plan- 
tations,' might  be  read." 

And  the  same  being  read  accordingly,  he  moved,  — 

"  That  this  House  will,  upon  this  day  sevennight,  resolve 
itself  into  a  committee  of  the  whole  House,  to  take  into  con- 
sideration the  duty  of  three-pence  per  pound  weight  upon 
tea,  payable  in  all  his  Majesty's  dominions  in  America,  im- 
posed by  the  said  act ;  and  also  the  appropriation  of  the 
said  duty." 

On  this  latter  motion  a  warm  and  interesting  debate  arose, 
in  which  Mr.  Burke  spoke  as  follows. 

SIR,  —  I  agree  with  the  honorable  gentleman  *  who 
spoke  last,  that  this  subject  is  not  new  in  this 
House.     Very  disagreeably  to  this  House,  very  un- 

*  Charles  Wolfran  Cornwall^  Esq.,  lately  appointed  one  of  the 
Lords  of  the  Treasury. 


6  SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

fortunately  to  this  nation,  and  to  the  peace  and  pros- 
perity of  this  whole  empire,  no  topic  has  been  more 
familiar  to  us.  For  nine  long  years,  session  after 
session,  we  have  been  lashed  round  and  round  this 
miserable  circle  of  occasional  arguments  and  tempo- 
rary expedients.  I  am  sure  our  heads  must  turn 
and  our  stomachs  nauseate  with  them.  We  have 
had  them  in  every  shape ;  we  have  looked  at  them 
in  every  point  of  view.  Invention  is  exhausted; 
reason  is  fatigued;  experience  has  given  judgment; 
but  obstinacy  is  not  yet  conquered. 

The  honorable  gentleman  has  made  one  endeavor 
more  to  diversify  the  form  of  this  disgusting  argu- 
ment. He  has  thrown  out  a  speech  composed  al- 
most entirely  of  challenges.  Challenges  are  serious 
things ;  and  as  he  is  a  man  of  prudence  as  well  as 
resolution,  I  dare  say  he  has  very  well  weighed  those 
challenges  before  he  delivered  them.  I  had  long 
the  happiness  to  sit  at  the  same  side  of  the  House, 
and  to  agree  with  the  honorable  gentleman  on  all 
the  American  questions.  My  sentiments,  I  am  sure, 
are  well  known  to  him ;  and  I  thought  I  had  been 
perfectly  acquainted  with  his.  Though  I  find  my- 
self mistaken,  he  will  still  permit  me  to  use  the 
privilege  of  an  old  friendship ;  he  will  permit  me 
to  apply  myself  to  the  House  vmder  the  sanction 
of  his  authority,  and,  on  the  various  grounds  ho  has 
measured  out,  to  .submit  to  you  the  poor  opinions 
which  I  have  formed  upon  a  matter  of  importance 
enough  to  demand  the  fullest  consideration  I  could 
bestow  upon  it. 

.  He  has  stated  to  the  Hovise  two  grounds  of  deliber- 
ation: one  narrow  and  simple,  and  merely  confined 
to  the  question  on  your  paper ;  the  other  more  large 


SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  7 

and  more  complicated,  —  comprehending  the  whole 
series  of  the  Parliamentary  proceedings  with  regard  to 
A  merica,  their  causes,  and  their  consequences.  With 
regard  to  the  latter  ground,  he  states  it  as  useless, 
and  thinks  it  may  be  even  dangerous,  to  enter  into  so 
extensive  a  field  of  inquiry.  Yet,  to  my  surprise,  he 
had  hardly  laid  down  this  restrictive  proposition,  to 
which  his  authority  would  have  given  so  much  weiglit, 
when  directly,  and  with  the  same  authority,  he  con- 
demns it,  and  declares  it  absolutely  necessary  to 
enter  into  the  most  ample  historical  detail.  His  zeal 
has  thrown  him  a  little  out  of  his  usual  accuracy.  In 
this  perplexity,  what  shall  we  do.  Sir,  who  arc  willing 
to  submit  to  the  law  he  gives  us  ?  He  has  reprobated 
in  one  part  of  his  speech  the  rule  he  had  laid  down 
for  debate  in  the  other,  and,  after  narrowing  the 
ground  for  all  those  who  are  to  speak  after  him,  he 
takes  an  excursion,  himself,  as  unbounded  as  the  sub- 
ject and  the  extent  of  his  great  abilities. 

Sir,  when  I  cannot  obey  all  his  laws,  I  will  do  the 
best  I  can.  I  will  endeavor  to  obey  such  of  them  as 
have  the  sanction  of  his  example,  and  to  stick  to 
that  rule  which,  though  not  consistent  with  the  other, 
is  the  most  rational.  He  was  certainly  in  the  right, 
when  he  took  the  matter  largely.  I  cannot  prevail 
on  myself  to  agree  with  him  in  his  censure  of  his  own 
conduct.  It  is  not,  he  will  give  me  leave  to  say, 
either  useless  or  dangerous.  He  asserts,  that  retro- 
spect is  not  wise ;  and  the  proper,  the  only  proper 
subject  of  inquiry,  is  "  not  liow  we  got  into  this  diffi- 
culty, but  how  we  are  to  get  out  of  it."  In  other 
words,  we  are,  according  to  him,  to  consult  our  inven- 
tion, and  to  reject  our  experience.  The  mode  of  de- 
liberation he  recommends  is  diametrically  opposite  to 


8  SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

every  rule  of  reason  and  every  principle  of  good  sense 
established  amongst  mankind.  For  that  sense  and 
that  reason  I  have  always  understood  absolutely  to 
prescribe,  whenever  we  are  involved  in  difficulties 
from  the  measures  we  have  pursued,  that  we  should 
take  a  strict  review  of  those  measures,  in  order  to 
correct  our  errors,  if  they  should  be  corrigible,  —  or 
at  least  to  avoid  a  dull  uniformity  in  mischief,  and 
the  unpitied  calamity  of  being  repeatedly  caught  in 
the  same  snare. 

Sir,  I  will  freely  follow  the  honorable  gentleman  in 
his  historical  discussion,  without  the  least  manage- 
ment for  men  or  measures,  further  than  as  they  shall 
seem  to  me  to  deserve  it.  But  before  I  go  into  that 
large  consideration,  because  I  would  omit  nothing 
that  can  give  the  House  satisfaction,  I  wish  to  tread 
the  narrow  ground  to  which  alone  the  honorable  gen- 
tleman, in  one  part  of  his  speech,  has  so  strictly  con- 
fined us.  , 

He  desires  to  know,  whether,  if  we  were  to  repeal 
this  tax,  agreeably  to  the  proposition  of  the  honora- 
ble gentleman  who  made  the  motion,  the  Americans 
would  not  take  post  on  this  concession,  in  order  to 
make  a  new  attack  on  the  next  body  of  taxes  ;  and 
whether  they  would  not  call  for  a  repeal  of  the  duty 
on  wine  as  loudly  as  they  do  now  for  the  repeal  of 
the  duty  on  tea.  Sir,  I  can  give  no  security  on  this 
subject.  But  I  will  do  all  that  I  can,  and  all  that 
can  be  fairly  demanded.  To  the  experience  which  the 
honorable  gentleman  reprobates  in  one  instant  and 
reverts  to  in  the  next,  to  that  experience,  without 
the  least  wavering  or  hesitation  on  my  part,  I  steadily 
appeal :  and  would  to  God  there  was  no  other  arbiter 
to  decide  on  the  vote  with  which  the  House  is  to  con- 
clude this  day ! 


SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  V 

Wlien  Parliament  repealed  the  Stamp  Act  in  the 
year  1766,  I  affirm,  first,  that  the  Americans  did  not 
in  consequence  of  this  measure  call  upon  you  to  give 
up  the  former  Parliamentary  revenue  which  subsisted 
in  that  country,  or  even  any  one  of  the  articles  which 
compose  it.  I  affirm  also,  that,  when,  departing  from 
the  maxims  of  that  repeal,  you  revived  the  scheme  of 
taxation,  and  thereby  filled  the  minds  of  the  colonists 
with  new  jealousy  and  all  sorts  of  apprehensions, 
then  it  was  that  they  quarrelled  with  the  old  taxes 
as  well  as  the  new ;  then  it  was,  and  not  till  then, 
that  they  questioned  all  the  parts  of  your  legislative 
power,  and  by  the  battery  of  such  questions  have 
shaken  the  solid  structure  of  this  empire  to  its  deep- 
est foundations. 

Of  those  two  propositions  I  shall,  before  I  have 
done,  give  such  convincing,  such  damning  proof,  that, 
however  the  contrary  may  be  whispered  in  circles  or 
bawled  in  newspapers,  they  never  more  will  dare  to 
raise  their  voices  in  this  House.  I  speak  with  great 
confidence.  I  have  reason  for  it.  The  ministers  are 
with  me.  TJibt/  at  least  are  convinced  that  the  repeal 
of  the  Stamp  Act  had  not,  and  that  no  repeal  can 
have,  the  consequences  which  the  honorable  gentle- 
man who  defends  their  measures  is  so  much  alarmed 
at.  To  their  conduct  I  refer  him  for  a  conclusive 
answer  to  his  objection,  I  carry  my  proof  irresist- 
ibly into  the  very  body  of  both  Ministry  and  Parlia- 
ment :  not  on  any  general  reasoning  growing  out  of 
collateral  matter,  but  on  the  conduct  of  the  honorable 
gentleman's  ministerial  friends  on  the  new  revenue 
itself. 

The  act  of  17G7,  which  grants  this  tea-duty,  sets 
forth  in  its  preamble,  that  it  was  expedient  to  raiso  a 


10  SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

reveiiue  in  America  for  the  support  of  the  civil  gov- 
ernment there,  as  well  as  for  purposes  still  more  ex- 
tensive. To  this  support  the  act  assigns  six  branches 
of  duties.  About  two  years  after  this  act  passed,  the 
ministry,  I  mean  the  present  ministry,  thought  it  ex- 
pedient to  repeal  five  of  the  duties,  and  to  leave  (for 
reasons  best  known  to  themselves)  only  the  sixth 
standing.  Suppose  any  person,  at  the  time  of  that 
repeal,  had  thus  addressed  the  minister :  *  "  Condem- 
ning, as  you  do,  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  why  do 
you  venture  to  repeal  the  duties  upon  glass,  paper, 
and  painters'  colors  ?  Let  your  pretence  for  the  re- 
peal be  what  it  will,  are  you  not  thoroughly  con- 
vinced that  your  concessions  will  produce,  not  satis- 
faction, but  insolence  in  the  Americans,  and  that 
the  giving  up  these  taxes  will  necessitate  the  giving 
up  of  all  the  rest  ?  "  This  objection  was  as  palpable 
then  as  it  is  now  ;  and  it  was  as  good  for  preserving 
the  five  duties  as  for  retaining  the  sixth.  Besides, 
the  minister  will  recollect  that  the  repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act  had  but  just  preceded  his  repeal ;  and  tlie 
ill  policy  of  that  measure,  (had  it  been  so  impolitic  as 
it  has  been  represented,)  and  the  mischiefs  it  pro- 
duced, were  quite  recent.  Upon  the  principles,  there- 
fore, of  the  honorable  gentleman,  upon  the  principles 
of  the  minister  himself,  the  minister  has  nothing  at 
all  to  answer.  He  stands  condemned  by  himself,  and 
by  all  his  associates  old  and  new,  as  a  destroyer,  in 
the  first  trust  of  finance,  of  the  revenues,  —  and  in  the 
first  rank  of  honor,  as  a  betrayer  of  the  dignity  of  his 
country. 

Most   men,  especially  great  men,  do  not   always 
know  their  well-wishers.     I  come  to  rescue  that  no- 

*  Lord  North,  then  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer. 


SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN   TAXATION.  H 

ble  lord  out  of  the  hands  of  those  he  calls  his  friends, 
and  even  out  of  his  own.  I  will  do  him  the  justice 
he  is  denied  at  home.  He  has  not  been  this  wicked 
or  imprudent  man.  He  knew  that  a  repeal  had  no 
tendency  to  produce  the  mischiefs  which  give  so  much 
alarm  to  his  honorable  friend.  His  work  was  not  bad 
in  its  principle,  but  imperfect  in  its  execution  ;  and 
the  motion  on  your  paper  presses  him  only  to  com- 
plete a  proper  plan,  which,  by  some  unfortunate  and 
unaccountable  error,  he  had  left  unfinished. 

I  hope,  Sir,  the  honorable  gentleman  who  spoke 
last  is  thoroughly  satisfied,  and  satisfied  out  of  the 
proceedings  of  ministry  on  their  own  favorite  act, 
that  his  fears  from  a  repeal  are  groundless.  If  he  is 
not,  I  leave  him,  and  the  noble  lord  who  sits  by  him, 
to  settle  the  matter  as  well  as  they  can  together  ; 
for,  if  the  repeal  of  American  taxes  destroys  all  our 
government  in  America,  —  he  is  the  man  !  —  and  he 
is  the  worst  of  all  the  repealers,  because  he  is  the 
last. 

But  I  hear  it  rung  continually  in  my  ears,  now  and 
formerly,  —  "The  preamble!  what  will  become  of 
the  preamble,  if  you  repeal  this  tax  ?  "  —  I  am  sorry 
to  be  compelled  so  often  to  expose  the  calamities  and 
disgraces  of  Parliament.  The  preamble  of  this  law, 
standing  as  it  now  stands,  has  the  lie  direct  given  to 
it  by  the  provisionary  part  of  the  act :  if  that  can  be 
called  provisionary  which  makes  no  provision.  I 
should  be  afraid  to  express  myself  in  this  manner, 
especially  in  the  face  of  such  a  formidable  array  of 
ability  as  is  now  drawn  up  before  me,  composed  of 
the  ancient  household  troops  of  that  side  of  the 
House  and  the  new  recruits  from  this,  if  the  matter 
were  not  clear  and  indisputable.     Nothing  but  truth 


12  SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

could  give  me  this  firmness ;  but  plain  truth  and 
clear  evidence  can  be  beat  down  by  no  ability.  The 
clerk  will  be  so  good  as  to  turn  to  the  act,  and  to 
read  this  favorite  preamble. 

"  Whereas  it  is  expedient  that  a  revenue  should  be 
raised  in  your  Majesty's  dominions  in  America,  for 
making  a  more  certain  and  adequate  provision  for  de- 
fraying the  charge  of  the  administration  of  justice  and 
support  of  civil  government  in  such  provinces  where  it 
shall  bo  found  necessary,  and  towards  further  defray- 
ing the  expenses  of  defending,  protecting,  and  securing 
the  said  dominions.^' 

You  have  heard  this  pompous  performance.  Now 
where  is  the  revenue  which  is  to  do  all  these  mighty 
things  ?  Five  sixths  repealed,  —  abandoned,  — sunk, 
—  gone,  —  lost  forever.  Does  the  poor  solitary  tea- 
duty  support  the  purposes  of  this  preamble  ?  Is  not 
the  supply  there  stated  as  effectually  abandoned  as 
if  the  tea-duty  had  perished  in  the  general  wreck  ? 
Here,  Mr.  Speaker,  is  a  precious  mockery :  —  a  pre- 
amble without  an  act,  ^-  taxes  granted  in  order  to  be 
repealed,  —  and  the  reasons  of  the  grant  still  care- 
fully kept  up!  This  is  raising  a  revenue  in  Amer- 
ica !  This  is  preserving  dignity  in  England  !  If  you 
repeal  this  tax,  in  compliance  with  the  motion,  I  read- 
ily admit  that  you  lose  this  fair  preamble.  Estimate 
your  loss  in  it.  The  object  of  the  act  is  gone  already ; 
and  all  you  suffer  is  the  purging  the  statute-book  of 
the  opprobrium  of  an  empty,  absurd,  and  false  recital. 

It  has  been  said  again  and  again,  that  the  five 
taxes  were  repealed  on  commercial  principles.  It  is 
so  said  in  the  paper  in  my  hand :  *  a  paper  which  I 

*  Lord  Hillsborough's  Circular  Letter  to  the  Governors  of  the  Coio- 
nies,  concerning  the  repeal  of  some  of  the  duties  laid  in  the  Act  of  1767. 


SPEECH   ON  AMEEICAN   TAXATION.  13 

constantly  carry  about;  which  I  have  often  used, 
and  shall  often  use  again.  What  is  got  by  this  pal- 
try pretence  of  commercial  principles  I  know  not; 
for,  if  your  government  in  America  is  destroyed  by 
the  repeal  of  taxes,  it  is  of  no  consequence  upon  what 
ideas  the  repeal  is  grounded.  Repeal  this  tax,  too, 
upon  commercial  principles,  if  you  please.  These 
principles  will  serve  as  well  now  as  they  did  formerly. 
But  you  know  that  either  your  objection  to  a  repeal 
from  these  supposed  consequences  has  no  validity,  or 
that  this  pretence  never  could  remove  it.  This  com- 
mercial motive  never  was  believed  by  any  man,  either 
in  America,  which  this  letter  is  meant  to  soothe,  or 
in  England,  which  it  is  meant  to  deceive.  It  was  im- 
possible it  should :  because  every  man,  in  the  least 
acquainted  with  the  detail  of  commerce,  must  know 
that  several  of  the  articles  on  which  the  tax  was  re- 
pealed were  fitter  objects  of  duties  than  almost  any 
other  articles  that  could  possibly  be  chosen, — without 
comparison  more  so  than  the  tea  that  was  left  taxed, 
as  infinitely  less  liable  to  be  eluded  by  contraband. 
The  tax  upon  red  and  white  lead  was  of  this  nature. 
You  have  in  this  kingdom  an  advantage  in  lead  that 
amounts  to  a  monopoly.  When  you  find  yourself  in 
this  situation  of  advantage,  you  sometimes  venture  to 
tax  even  your  own  export.  You  did  so  soon  after 
the  last  war,  when,  upon  this  principle,  you  ventured 
to  impose  a  duty  on  coals.  In  all  the  articles  of 
American  contraband  trade,  who  ever  heard  of  the 
smuggling  of  red  lead  and  white  lead  ?  You  might, 
therefore,  well  enough,  without  danger  of  contraband, 
and  without  injury  to  commerce,  (if  this  were  the 
whole  consideration,)  have  taxed  these  commodities. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  glass.     Besides,  some  of  tho 


14  SPEECH   ON    AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

things  taxed  were  so  trivial,  that  the  loss  of  the  ob- 
jects themselves,  and  their  utter  annihilation  out  of 
American  commerce,  would  have  been  comparatively 
as  nothing.  But  is  the  article  of  tea  such  an  object 
in  the  trade  of  England,  as  not  to  be  felt,  or  felt  but 
slightly,  like  white  lead,  and  red  lead,  and  painters' 
colors  ?  Tea  is  an  object  of  far  other  importance. 
Tea  is  perhaps  the  most  important  object,  taking  it 
with  its  necessary  connections,  of  any  in  the  mighty 
circle  of  our  commerce.  If  commercial  principles 
had  been  the  true  motives  to  the  repeal,  or  had  tliey 
been  at  all  attended  to,  tea  would  have  been  the  last 
article  we  should  have  left  taxed  for  a  subject  of  con- 
troversy. 

Sir,  it  is  not  a  pleasant  consideration,  but  nothing 
in  the  world  can  read  so  awful  and  so  instructive  a 
lesson  as  the  conduct  of  ministry  in  this  business,  up- 
on the  mischief  of  not  having  large  and  liberal  ideas 
in  the  management  of  great  affairs.  Never  have  the 
servants  of  the  state  looked  at  the  whole  of  your  com- 
plicated interests  in  one  connected  view.  They  have 
taken  things  by  bits  and  scraps,  some  at  one  time 
and  one  pretence,  and  some  at  another,  just  as  they 
pressed,  without  any  sort  of  regard  to  their  relations 
or  dependencies.  They  never  had  any  kind  of  sys- 
tem, right  or  wrong  ;  but  only  invented  occasionally 
some  miserable  tale  for  the  day,  in  order  meanly  to 
sneak  out  of  difficulties  mto  which  they  had  proudly 
strutted.  And  they  were  put  to  all  these  shifts  and 
devices,  full  of  meanness  and  full  of  mischief,  in  order 
to  pilfer  piecemeal  a  repeal  of  an  act  which  they  had 
not  the  generous  courage,  when  they  found  and  felt 
their  error,  honorably  and  fairly  to  disclaim.  By  such 
management,  by  the  irresistible  operation  of  feeble 


SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION.  15 

coiiiicils,  SO  paltiy  a  sum  as  three-pence  in  the  eyes 
of  a  financier,  so  insignificant  an  article  as  tea  in  the 
fives  of  a  philosopher,  have  shaken  the  pillars  of  a 
jmmercial  empire  that  circled  the  whole  globe. 
Do  you  forget  that  in  the  very  last  year  you  stood 
on  the  precipice  of  general  bankruptcy  ?     Your  dan- 
ger was  indeed  great.     You  were  distressed  in  the  af- 
fairs of  the  East  India  Conjpany  ;  and  you  well  know 
what  sort  of  things  are  involved  in  the  comprehen- 
sive energy  of  that  significant  appellation.     I  am  not 
called  upon  to  enlarge  to  you  on  that  danger,  which 
you  thought  proper  yourselves  to  aggravate,  and  to 
display  to  the  world  with  all  the  parade  of  indiscreet 
declamation.     The  monopoly  of  the  most  lucrative 
trades  and  the  possession  of  imperial  revenues   had 
brought  you  to  the  verge  of  beggary  and  ruin.     Such 
was  your  representation  ;    such,   in    some  measure, 
was  your  case.     The  vent  of  ten  millions  of  pounds 
of  this  commodity,  now  locked  up  by  the  operation  of 
an  injudicious  tax,  and  rotting  in  the  warehouses  of 
the  Company,  would  have  prevented  all  this  distress, 
and  all  that  series  of  desperate  measures  which  you 
thought  yourselves  obliged  to  take  in  consequence  of 
it.     America  would  have  furnished  that  vent,  which 
no  other  part  of  the  world  can  furnish  but  America, 
where  tea  is  next  to  a  necessary  of  life,  and  where 
the  demand  grows  upon  the  supply.     I  hope  our  dear- 
bought  East  India  Committees  have  done  us  at  least 
so  much  good,  as  to  let  us  know,  that,  without  a  more 
extensive  sale  of  that  article,  our  East  India  revenues 
and  acquisitions  can  have  no  certain  connection  with 
this  country.     It  is  through  the  American  trade  of 
tea  that  your  East  India  conquests  are  to  be  pre- 
vented from  crushing  you  with  their  burden.     They 


16  SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

are  ponderous  indeed  ;  and  they  must  have  that  great 
country  to  lean  upon,  or  they  tumble  upon  your  head. 
It  is  the  same  folly  that  has  lost  you  at  once  the  ben- 
efit of  the  West  and  of  the  East.  This  folly  has 
thrown  open  folding-doors  to  contraband,  and  will 
be  the  means  of  giving  the  profits  of  the  trade  of 
your  colonies  to  every  nation  but  yourselves.  Never 
did  a  people  suffer  so  mucli  for  the  empty  words  of  a 
preamble.  It  must  be  given  up.  For  on  what  prin- 
ciple does  it  stand  ?  This  famous  revenue  stands,  at 
this  hour,  on  all  the  debate,  as  a  description  of  rev- 
enue not  as  yet  known  in  all  the  comprehensive  (but 
too  comprehensive  ! )  vocabulary  of  finance,  —  a  pre- 
amhulary  tax.  It  is,  indeed,  a  tax  of  sophistry,  a  tax 
of  pedantry,  a  tax  of  disputation,  a  tax  of  war  and 
rebellion,  a  tax  for  anything  but  benefit  to  the  im 
posers  or  satisfaction  to  the  subject. 

Well !  but  whatever  it  is,  gentlemen  will  force  the 
colonists  to  take  the  teas.  You  will  force  them  ?  Has 
seven  years'  struggle  been  yet  able  to  force  them  ? 
Oh,  but  it  seems  "  we  are  in  the  right.  The  tax  is 
trifling,  —  in  effect  it  is  rather  an  exoneration  than 
an  imposition  ;  three  fourths  of  the  duty  formerly 
payable  on  teas  exported  to  America  is  taken  off",  — 
the  place  of  collection  is  only  shifted  ;  instead  of  the 
retention  of  a  shilling  from  the  drawback  here,  it  is 
three-pence  custom  paid  in  America."  All  this.  Sir, 
is  very  true.  But  this  is  the  very  folly  and  mischief 
of  the  act.  Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  you  know  that 
you  have  deliberately  thrown  away  a  large  duty,  which 
you  held  secure  and  quiet  in  your  hands,  for  the 
vain  hope  of  getting  one  three  fourths  less,  through 
every  hazard,  through  certain  litigation,  and  possibly 
through  war. 


SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  17 

The  manner  of  proceeding  in  the  duties  on  paper 
and  glass,  imposed  by  the  same  act,  was  exactly  in 
the  same  spirit.  There  are  heavy  excises  on  those 
articles,  when  used  in  England.  On  export,  these 
excises  are  drawn  back.  But  instead  of  withholding 
the  drawback,  which  might  have  been  done,  with 
ease,  without  charge,  without  possibility  of  smug- 
gling, and  instead  of  applying  the  money  (money 
already  in  your  hands)  according  to  your  pleasure, 
you  began  your  operations  in  finance  by  flinging 
away  your  revenue ;  you  allowed  the  whole  draw- 
back on  export,  and  then  you  charged  the  duty, 
(which  you  had  before  discharged,)  payable  in  the  col- 
onies, where  it  was  certain  the  collection  would  de- 
vour it  to  the  bone,  —  if  any  revenue  were  ever  suf- 
fered fo  be  collected  at  all.  One  spirit  pervades  and 
animates  the  whole  mass. 

Could  anything  be  a  subject  of  more  just  alarm  to 
America  than  to  sec  you  go  out  of  the  plain  high- 
road of  finance,  and  give  up  your  most  certain  reve- 
nues and  your  clearest  interest,  merely  for  the  sake  of 
insulting  your  colonies  ?  No  man  ever  doubted  that 
the  commodity  of  tea  could  bear  an  imposition  of 
three-pence.  But  no  commodity  will  bear  three- 
pence, or  will  bear  a  penny,  when  the  general  feel- 
ings of  men  are  irritated,  and  two  millions  of  people 
are  resolved  not  to  pay.  The  feelings  of  the  colonies 
were  formerly  the  feelings  of  Great  Britain.  Theirs 
were  formerly  the  feelings  of  Mr.  Hampden,  when 
called  upon  for  the  payment  of  twenty  shillings. 
Would  twenty  shillings  have  ruined  Mr.  Hampden's 
fortune  ?  No  !  but  the  payment  of  half  twenty  shil- 
lings, on  the  principle  it  was  demanded,  would  have 
made  him  a  slave.     It  is  the  weiglit  of  that  preamble, 

VOL.  II.  2 


18  SPEECH    ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

of  which  you  are  so  fond,  and  not  the  weight  -f  the 
duty,  that  the  Americans  are  unable  and  unwilling 
to  bear. 

It  is,  then,  Sir,  upon  the  principle  of  this  meas- 
ure, and  nothing  else,  that  we  are  at  issue.  It  is  a 
principle  of  political  expediency.  Your  act  of  1767 
asserts  that  it  is  expedient  to  raise  a  revenue  in 
America ;  your  act  of  1769,  which  takes  away  that 
revenue,  contradicts  the  act  of  1767,  and,  by  some- 
thing much  stronger  than  words,  asserts  that  it  is 
not  expedient.  It  is  a  reflection  upon  your  wisdom 
to  persist  in  a  solemn  Parliamentary  declaration  of 
the  expediency  of  any  object,  for  which,  at  the  same 
time,  you  make  no  sort  of  provision.  And  pray.  Sir, 
let  not  this  circumstance  escape  you,  —  it  is  very  ma- 
terial,—  that  the  preamble  of  this  act  which  we  wish 
to  repeal  is  not  declaratory  of  a  rights  as  some  gentle- 
men seem  to  argue  it :  it  is  only  a  recital  of  the  expedi- 
ency of  a  certain  exercise  of  a  right  supposed  already 
to  have  been  asserted  ;  an  exercise  you  are  now  con- 
tending for  by  ways  and  means  which  you  confess, 
though  they  were  obeyed,  to  be  utterly  insufficient 
for  their  purpose.  You  are  therefore  at  this  moment 
in  the  awkward  situation  of  fighting  for  a  phantom, 
—  a  quiddity,  —  a  thing  that  wants,  not  only  a  sub- 
stance, but  even  a  name,  —  for  a  thing  which  is 
neither  abstract  right  nor  profitable  enjoyment. 

They  tell  you.  Sir,  that  your  dignity  is  tied  to  it. 
I  know  not  how  it  happens,  but  this  dignity  of  yours 
is  a  terrible  incumbrance  to  you  ;  for  it  has  of  late 
been  ever  at  war  with  your  interest,  your  equity,  and 
every  idea  of  your  policy.  Show  the  thing  you  con- 
tend for  to  be  reason,  show  it  to  be  common  sense, 
show  it  to  be  the  means  of  attaining  some  useful 


SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN   TAXATION.  19 

end,  and  then  I  am  content  to  allow  it  what  dignity 
you  please.  But  what  dignity  is  derived  from  the 
perseverance  in  absurdity  is  more  than  ever  I  could 
discern.  The  honorable  gentleman  has  said  well,  — 
indeed,  in  most  of  his  general  observations  I  agree 
with  him,  —  he  says,  that  this  subject  does  not  stand 
as  it  did  formerly.  Oh,  certainly  not !  Every  hour 
you  continue  on  this  ill-chosen  ground,  your  difficul- 
ties thicken  on  you  ;  and  therefore  my  conclusion  is, 
remove  from  a  bad  position  as  quickly  as  you  can. 
The  disgrace,  and  the  necessity  of  yielding,  both  of 
them,  grow  upon  you  every  hour  of  your  delay. 

But  will  you  repeal  the  act,  says  the  honorable 
gentleman,  at  this  instant,  when  America  is  in  open 
resistance  to  your  authority,  and  that  you  have  just 
revived  your  system  of  taxation  ?  He  thinks  he  has 
driven  us  into  a  corner.  But  thus  pent  up,  I  am 
content  to  meet  him ;  because  I  enter  the  lists  sup- 
ported by  my  old  authority,  his  new  friends,  the  min- 
isters themselves.  The  honorable  gentleman  remem- 
bers that  about  five  years  ago  as  great  disturbances 
as  the  present  prevailed  in  America  on  account  of  the 
new  taxes.  The  ministers  represented  these  disturb- 
ances as  treasonable  ;  and  this  House  thought  proper, 
on  that  representation,  to  make  a  famous  address  for 
a  revival  and  for  a  new  application  of  a  statute  of 
Henry  the  Eighth.  We  besought  the  king,  in  that 
well-considered  address,  to  inquire  into  treasons,  and 
to  bring  .the  supposed  traitors  from  America  to  Great 
Britain  for  trial.  His  Majesty  was  pleased  graciously 
to  promise  a  compliance  Avith  our  request.  All  the 
attempts  from  this  side  of  tlie  House  to  resist  these 
violences,  and  to  bring  about  a  repeal,  were  treated 
with  the  utmost  scorn.     An  apprehension  of  the  very 


20  SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

consequences  now  stated  by  the  honorable  gentleman 
was  then  given  as  a  reason  for  shutting  the  door 
against  all  hope  of  such  an  alteration.  And  so 
strong  was  the  spirit  for  supporting  the  new  taxes, 
that  the  session  concluded  with  the  following  remark- 
able declaration.  After  stating  the  vigorous  meas- 
ures which  had  been  pursued,  the  speech  from  the 
throne  proceeds : — 

"  You  have  assured  me  of  your  firm  support  in  the 
'prosecution  of  them.  Nothing,  in  my  opinion,  could 
be  more  likely  to  enable  the  well-disposed  among  my 
subjects  in  that  part  of  the  world  effectually  to  dis- 
courage and  defeat  the  designs  of  the  factious  and  se- 
ditious than  the  hearty  concurrence  of  every  branch 
of  the  legislature  in  the  resolution  of  maintaining  the 
execution  of  the  laws  in  every  part  of  my  dominions." 

After  this  no  man  dreamt  that  a  repeal  under  this 
ministry  could  possibly  take  place.  The  honorable 
gentleman  knows  as  well  as  I,  that  the  idea  was  ut- 
terly exploded  by  those  who  sway  the  House.  This 
speech  was  made  on  the  ninth  day  of  May,  1769. 
Five  days  after  this  speech,  that  is,  on  the  thirteenth 
of  the  same  month,  the  piiblic  circular  letter,  a  part 
of  which  I  am  going  to  read  to  you,  was  written  by 
Lord  Hillsborough,  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colo- 
nies. After  reciting  the  substance  of  the  king's 
speech,  he  goes  on  thus  :  — 

"  I  can  take  upon  me  to  assure  you,  notwithstand- 
ing insinuations  to  the  contrary  from  men  with  fac- 
tious and  seditious  views,  that  his  Majesty's  present 
administration  have  at  no  time  entertained  a  design 
to  propose  to  Parliament  to  lay  any  further  taxes 
upon  America,  for  the  purpose  of  raising  a  reve- 
nue ;  and  that  it  is  at  present  their  intention  to  pro- 


SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION.  21 

poso,  the  next  session  of  Parliament,  to  take  off  the 
duties  upon  glass,  paper,  and  colors,  upon  considera- 
tion of  such  duties  having  been  laid  contrary  to  the  true 
principles  of  commerce. 

"  Tliese  have  always  been,'and  still  are,  the  senti- 
ments of  his  3Iajesty^s  present  servants,  and  by  which  ' 
their  conduct  in  respect  to  America  has  been  governed. 
And  his  Majesty  relies  upon  your  prudence  and  fidel- 
ity for  such  an  explanation  of  his  measures  as  may 
tend  to  remove  the  prejudices  which  have  been  excit- 
ed by  the  misrepresentations  of  those  who  arc  enemies 
to  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  Great  Britain  and  her 
colonics,  and  to  reestablish  that  mutual  confidence 
and  affection  upon  which  the  glory  and  safety  of  the 
British  empire  depend." 

Here,  Sir,  is  a  canonical  book  of  ministerial  scrip- 
ture :  the  general  epistle  to  the  Americans.  What 
does  the  gentleman  say  to  it  ?  Here  a  repeal  is  prom- 
ised, —  promised  without  condition,  —  and  while  your 
authority  was  actually  resisted.  I  pass  by  the  public 
promise  of  a  peer  relative  to  the  repeal  of  taxes  by 
this  House.  I  pass  by  the  use  of  the  king's  name 
in  a  matter  of  supply,  that  sacred  and  reserved  right 
of  the  Commons.  I  conceal  the  ridiculous  figure  of 
Parliament  hurling  its  thunders  at  the  gigantic  re- 
bellion of  America,  and  then,  five  days  after,  pros- 
trate at  the  feet  of  those  assemblies  we  affected  to 
despise,  —  begging  them,  by  the  intervention  of  our 
ministerial  sureties,  to  receive  our  submission,  and 
heartily  promising  amendment.  These  might  have 
been  serious  matters  formerly  ;  but  we  are  grown 
wiser  than  our  fiitliers.  Passing,  therefore,  from  the 
Constitutional  consideration  to  the  mere  policy,  does 
not  this  letter  imply  that  the  idea  of  taxing  America 


22  SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

for  the  purpose  of  revenue  is  an  abominable  proj- 
ect, when  the  ministry  suppose  none  but  factious 
men,  and  with  seditious  views,  could  charge  them 
with  it  ?  does  not  this  letter  adopt  and  sanctify  the 
American  distinction  o^ taxing  for  a  revenue  ?  does  it 
not  formally  reject  all  future  taxation  on  that  prin- 
ciple ?  does  it  not  state  the  ministerial  rejection  of 
such  principle  of  taxation,  not  as  the  occasional,  but 
the  constant  opinion  of  the  king's  servants  ?  does  it 
not  say^  (I  care  not  how  consistently,)  but  does  it  not 
say,  that  their  conduct  with  regard  to  America  has 
been  always  governed  by  this  policy  ?  It  goes  a  great 
deal  further.  These  excellent  and  trusty  servants  of 
the  king,  justly  fearful  lest  they  themselves  should 
have  lost  all  credit  with  the  world,  bring  out  the  im- 
age of  their  gracious  sovereign  from  the  inmost  and 
most  sacred  shrine,  and  they  pawn  him  as  a  security 
for  their  promises:  —  '•'•  His  Majesty  relies  on  your 
prudence  and  fidelity  for  such  an  explanation  of  his 
measures."  These  sentiments  of  the  minister  and 
these  measures  of  his  Majesty  can  only  relate  to  the 
principle  and  practice  of  taxing  for  a  revenue ;  and 
accordingly  Lord  Botetourt,  stating  it  as  such,  did, 
with  great  propriety,  and  in  the  exact  spirit  of  his 
instructions,  endeavor  to  remove  the  fears  of  the  Vir- 
ginian assembly  lest  the  sentiments  which  it  seems 
(unknown  to  the  world)  had  always  been  those  of  the 
ministers,  and  by  which  their  conduct  in  respect  to 
America  had  been  governed,  should  by  some  possible 
revolution,  favorable  to  wicked  American  taxers,  be 
hereafter  counteracted.  He  addresses  them  in  this 
manner :  — 

"  It  may  possibly  be  objected,  that,  as  his  Majesty's 
present  administration  are  not  immortal,  their  succes- 


SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION.  23 

sors  may  be  inclined  to  attempt  to  undo  what  tlie 
present  ministers  shall  have  attempted  to  perform  ; 
and  to  that  objection  I  can  give  but  this  answer :  that 
it  is  my  firm  opinion,  that  the  plan  I  have  stated  to 
you  mil  certainly  take  place,  and  that  it  will  never 
be  departed  from  ;  and  so  determined  am  I  forever  to 
abide  by  it,  that  I  will  be  content  to  be  declared  infa- 
mous, if  I  do  not,  to  the  last  hour  of  my  life,  at  all 
times,  in  all  places,  and  upon  all  occasions,  exert 
every  power  with  which  I  either  am  or  ever  shall  be 
legally  invested,  in  order  to  obtain  and  maintain  for 
the  continent  of  America  that  satisfaction  which  I 
have  been  authorized  to  promise  this  day  by  the  con- 
fidential servants  of  our  gracious  sovereign,  who  to 
my  certain  knowledge  rates  his  honor  so  high  that 
he  would  rather  part  with  his  crown  than  preserve  it  hy 
deceit. ^^  * 

A  glorious  and  true  character !  which  (since  we 
suffer  his  ministers  with  impunity  to  answer  for  his 
ideas  of  taxation)  we  ought  to  make  it  our  business 
to  enable  his  Majesty  to  preserve  in  all  its  lustre. 
Let  him  have  character,  since  ours  is  no  more  !  Let 
some  part  of  government  be  kept  in  respect ! 

*  A  material  point  is  omitted  by  Mr.  Burke  in  this  speech,  viz. 
the  manner  in  which  the  continent  received  this  royal  assurance.  The  as- 
sembly of  Virginia,  in  their  address  in  answer  to  Lord  Botetourt's 
speech,  express  themselves  thus: — "We  will  not  suffer  our  present 
hopes,  arising  from  the  pleasing  prospect  your  Lordship  hath  so  kindly 
opened  and  displayed  to  us,  to  be  dashed  by  the  bitter  reflection  that 
any  future  administration  will  entertain  a  wish  to  depart  from  that 
plan  which  affords  the  surest  and  most  permanent  foundation  of  pub- 
lic tranquillity  and  liappincss.  No,  my  Lord,  we  are  sure  our  most 
gracious  sovereign,  under  wliatever  changes  may  happen  in  his  confi- 
dential servants,  will  remain  imnuituble  in  the  ways  of  ti'uth  and  jus- 
tice, and  that  he  is  incapable  of  deceiving  his  faithful  subjects ;  and  wc 
esteem  your  Lordsiiijt's  information  not  only  as  warranted,  but  cveu 
sanctilicd  bij  the  royal  word." 


24  SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

This  epistle  was  not  the  letter  of  Lord  Hillsborough 
solely,  though  he  held  the  official  pen.  It  was  the 
letter  of  the  noble  lord  upon  the  floor,*  and  of  all  the 
king's  then  ministers,  who  (with,  I  think,  the  excc{> 
tion  of  two  only)  are  his  ministers  at  this  hour.  The 
very  first  news  that  a  British  Parliament  heard  of 
what  it  was  to  do  with  the  duties  which  it  had  given 
and  granted  to  the  king  was  by  the  publication  of 
the  votes  of  American  assemblies.  It  was  in  America 
that  your  resolutions  were  pre-declared.  It  was  from 
thence  that  we  knew  to  a  certainty  how  much  exactly, 
and  not  a  scruple  more  nor  less,  we  were  to  repeal. 
We  were  unworthy  to  be  let  into  the  secret  of  our 
own  conduct.  The  assemblies  had  confidential  com- 
munications from  his  Majesty's  confidential  servants. 
"We  were  nothing  but  instruments.  Do  you,  after 
this,  wonder  that  you  have  no  weight  and  no  re- 
spect in  the  colonies  ?  After  this  are  you  surprised 
that  Parliament  is  every  day  and  everywhere  losing 
(I  feel  it  with  sorrow,  I  utter  it  with  reluctance)  that 
reverential  affection  which  so  endearing  a  name  of 
authority  ought  ever  to  carry  with  it  ?  that  you  are 
obeyed  solely  from  respect  to  the  bayonet  ?  and  that 
this  House,  the  ground  and  pillar  of  freedom,  is  itself 
held  up  only  by  the  treacherous  imderpinning  and 
clumsy  buttresses  of  arbitrary  power  ? 

If  this  dignity,  which  is  to  stand  in  the  place  of 
just  policy  and  common  sense,  had  been  consulted, 
there  was  a  time  for  preserving  it,  and  for  reconciling 
it  with  any  concession.  If  in  the  session  of  17G8, 
that  session  of  idle  terror  and  empty  menaces,  you 
had,  as  you  were  often  pressed  to  do,  repealed  these 
taxes,   then  your  strong  operations  would  have  come 

*  Lord  North. 


SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION.  25 

justified  and  enforced,  in  case  your  concessions  had 
been  returned  by  outrages.  But,  preposterously,  you 
began  with  violence ;  and  before  terrors  could  have 
any  eifect,  either  good  or  bad,  your  ministers  imme- 
diately begged  pardon,  and  promised  that  repeal  to 
the  obstinate  Americans  which  they  had  refused  in 
an  easy,  good-natured,  complying  British  Parliament. 
The  assemblies,  which  had  been  publicly  and  avow- 
edly dissolved  for  tlieir  contumacy,  are  called  together 
to  receive  your  submission.  Your  ministerial  direc- 
tors blustered  like  tragic  tyrants  here ;  and  then  went 
mumping  with  a  sore  leg  in  America,  canting,  and 
whining,  and  complaining  of  faction,  which  repre- 
sented them  as  friends  to  a  revenue  from  the  colo- 
nies. I  hope  nobody  in  this  House  will  hereafter  have 
the  impudence  to  defend  American  taxes  in  the  name 
of  ministry.  The  moment  they  do,  with  this  letter  of 
attorney  in  my  hand,  I  will  tell  them,  in  the  author- 
ized terms,  they  are  wretches  "  with  factious  and  se- 
ditious views,"  "  enemies  to  the  peace  and  prosperity 
of  the  mother  country  and  the  colonies,"  and  subvert- 
ers  "  of  the  mutual  affection  and  confidence  on  which 
the  glory  and  safety  of  the  British  empire  depend." 

After  this  letter,  the  question  is  no  more  on  pro- 
priety or  dignity.  They  are  gone  already.  The 
faith  of  your  sovereign  is  pledged  for  the  political 
principle.  The  general  declaration  in  the  letter  goes 
to  the  whole  of  it.  You  must  therefore  cither  aban- 
don the  scheme  of  taxing,  or  you  must  send  the 
ministers  tarred  and  fcatliered  to  America,  who  dared 
to  hold  out  the  royal  faith  for  a  renunciation  of  all 
taxes  for  revenue.  Them  you  must  punish,  or  this 
fiith  you  must  preserve.  The  preservation  of  this 
faith  is  of  more  consequence  than  the  duties  on  red 


26  SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

lead,  or  ivliite  lead,  or  on  broken  glass,  or  atlas-ordi 
nary,  or  demy-fine,  or  hlue-royal,  or  bastard,  or  /t>oZs 
co/^,  which  you  have  given  np,  or  the  three-pence  on 
tea  which  you  retained.  The  letter  went  stamped 
with  tlie  public  authority  of  this  kingdom.  The  in- 
structions for  the  colony  government  go  under  no 
other  sanction ;  and  America  cannot  believe,  and 
will  not  obey  you,  if  you  do  not  preserve  this  channel 
of  communication  sacred.  You  are  now  punishing 
the  colonies  for  acting  on  distinctions  held  out  by 
that  very  ministry  which  is  here  shining  in  riches,  in 
favor,  and  in  power,  and  urging  the  punishment  of 
the  very  offence  to  which  they  had  themselves  been 
the  tempters. 

Sir,  if  reasons  respecting  simply  your  own  com- 
merce, which  is  your  own  convenience,  were  the  sole 
grounds  of  the  repeal  of  tlie  five  duties,  why  does 
Lord  Hillsborough,  in  disclaiming  in  the  name  of  the 
king  and  ministry  their  ever  having  had  an  intent  to 
tax  for  revenue,  mention  it  as  the  means  "  of  reestab- 
lisliing  the  confidence  and  affection  of  the  colonies  ?  " 
Is  it  a  way  of  soothing  others,  to  assure  them  that  you 
will  take  good  care  of  yourself?  The  medium,  the 
only  medium,  for  regaining  tlieir  affection  and  confi- 
dence is  that  you  will  take  off  something  oppressive 
to  their  minds.  Sir,  the  letter  strongly  enforces  that 
idea :  for  though  the  repeal  of  the  taxes  is  promised 
on  commercial  principles,  yet  the  means  of  counter- 
acting the  "  insinuations  of  men  with  factious  and  se- 
ditious views  "  is  by  a  disclaimer  of  the  intention  of 
taxing  for  revenue,  as  a  constant,  invariable  sentiment 
and  rule  of  conduct  in  the  government  of  America. 

I  remember  that  the  noble  lord  on  the  floor,  not 
in  a  former  debate  to  be  sure,  (it  would  be  disorderly 


SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  27 

to  refer  to  it,  I  suppose  I  read  it  somewhere,)  but  the 
noble  lord  was  pleased  to  say,  that  he  did  not  con 
ceive  how  it  could  enter  into  the  head  of  man  to  im- 
■  pose  such  taxes  as  those  of  1767  :  I  mean  those  taxes 
wiiich  he  voted  for  imposing,  and  voted  for  repealing, 
—  as  being  taxes, 'contrary  to  all  the  principles  of 
commerce,  laid  on  British  manufactures. 

I  dare  say  the  noble  lord  is  perfectly  well  read, 
because  the  duty  of  his  particular  office  requires  he 
should  be  so,  in  all  our  revenue  laws,  and  in  the 
policy  which  is  to  be  collected  out  of  them.  Now, 
Sir,  when  he  had  read  this  act  of  American  revenue, 
and  a  little  recovered  from  his  astonishment,  I  su}> 
pose  he  made  one  step  retrograde  (it  is  but  one)  and 
looked  at  the  act  which  stands  just  before  in  the  stat- 
ute-book. The  Alnerican  revenue  act  is  the  forty- 
fifth  chapter ;  the  other  to  which  I  refer  is  the  forty- 
fourth  of  the  same  session.  These  two  acts  are  both 
to  the  same  purpose  :  both  revenue  acts  ;  botli  taxing 
out  of  the  kingdom  ;  and  both  taxing  British  manu- 
factures exported.  As  the  forty-fifth  is  an  act  for 
raising  a  revenue  in  America,  the  forty-fourth  is  an 
act  for  raising  a  revenue  in  the  Isle  of  Man.  The  two 
acts  perfectly  agree  in  all  respects,  except  one.  In  the 
act  for  taxing  the  Isle  of  Man  the  noble  lord  will  find, 
not,  as  in  the  American  act,  four  or  five  articles, 
but  almost  the  whole  body  of  British  manufactiires, 
taxed  from  two  and  a  half  to  fifteen  per  cent,  and 
some  articles,  such  as  that  of  spirits,  a  great  deal 
higher.  You  did  not  think  it  uncommercial  to  tax 
the  whole  mass  of  your  manufactures,  and,  let  me 
add,  your  agriculture  too  ;  for,  I  now  recollect,  Brit- 
ish corn  is  there  also  taxed  up  to  ten  per  cent,  and 
this  too  in  the  very  head-quarters,  the  very  citadel  of 


28  SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

smuggling,  the  Isle  of  Man.  Now  will  the  noble  lord 
condescend  to  tell  me  why  he  repealed  the  taxes  on 
your  manufactures  sent  out  to  America,  and  not  the 
taxes  on  the  manufactures  exported  to  the  Isle  of 
Man  ?  The  principle  was  exactly  the  same,  the  ob- 
jects charged  infinitely'  more  extensive,  the  duties 
without  comparison  higher.  Why?  Why,  notwith- 
standing all  his  childish  pretexts,  because  the  taxes 
were  quietly  submitted  to  in  the  Isle  of  Man,  and 
because  they  raised  a  flame  in  America.  Your  rea- 
sons were  political,  not  commercial.  The  repeal  was 
made,  as  Lord  Hillsborough's  letter  well  expresses  it, 
to  regain  "  the  confidence  and  affection  of  the  colo- 
nies, on  which  the  glory  and  safety  of  the  British  em- 
pire depend."  A  wise  and  just  motive,  surely,  if 
ever  there  was  such.  But  the  mischief  and  dishonor 
is,  that  you  have  not  done  what  you  had  given  the 
colonies  just  cause  to  expect,  when  your  ministers 
disclaimed  the  idea  of  taxes  for  a  revenue.  There  is 
nothing  simple,  nothing  manly,  nothing  higenuous, 
open,  decisive,  or  steady,  in  the  proceeding,  with  re- 
gard either  to  the  continuance  or  the  repeal  of  the 
taxes.  The  whole  has  an  air  of  littleness  and  fraud. 
The  article  of  tea  is  slurred  over  in  the  circular  let- 
ter, as  it  were  by  accident :  nothing  is  said  of  a 
resolution  either  to  keep  that  tax  or  to  give  it  up. 
There  is  no  fair  dealing  in  any  part  of  the  transac-' 
tion. 

If  you  mean  to  follow  your  true  motive  and  your 
public  faith,  give  up  your  tax  on  tea  for  raising  a 
revenue,  the  principle  of  which  has,  in  effect,  been 
disclaimed  in  your  name,  and  which  produces  you 
no  advantage,  —  no,  not  a  penny.  Or,  if  you  choose 
to  go  on  with  a  pooi*  pretence  instead  of  a  solid  rea- 


SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION.  29 

son,  and  will  still  adhere  to  your  cant  of  commerce, 
you  have  ten  thousand  times  more  strong  commercial 
reasons  for  giving  up  this  duty  on  tea  than  for  aban- 
doning the  five  others  that  you  have  already  re- 
nounced. 

The  j\jnerican  consumption  of  teas  is  annually,  I 
believe,  worth  300,000?.  at  the  least  farthing.  If  you 
urge  the  American  violence  as  a  justification  of  your 
perseverance  in  enforcing  this  tax,  you  know  that  you 
can  never  answer  this  plain  question,  —  Wliy  did  you 
repeal  the  others  given  in  the  same  act,  whilst  the 
very  same  violence  subsisted  ?  —  But  you  did  not  find 
the  violence  cease  upon  that  concession.  —  No !  be- 
cause the  concession  was  far  short  of  satisfying  the 
principle  which  Lord  Hillsborough  had  abjured,  or 
even  the  pretence  on  which  the  repeal  of  the  other 
taxes  was  announced ;  and  because,  by  enabling  the 
East  India  Company  to  open  a  shop  for  defeating  the 
American  resolution  not  to  pay  that  specific  tax,  you 
manifestly  showed  a  hankering  after  the  principle  of 
the  act  which  you  formerly  had  renounced.  What- 
ever road  you  take  leads  to  a  compliance  with  this 
motion.  It  opens  to  you  at  the  end  of  every  visto. 
Your  commerce,  your  policy,  your  promises,  your 
reasons,  your  pretences,  your  consistency,  your  in 
consistency,  —  all  jointly  oblige  you  to  this  repeal. 

But  still  it  sticks  in  our  throats,  if  we  go  so  far,  the 
Americans  will  go  farther.  —  We  do  not  know  that. 
We  ought,  from  experience,  rather  to  presume  the  con- 
trary. Do  we  not  know  for  certain,  that  the  Ameri- 
cans are  going  on  as  fast  as  possible,  whilst  wo  re- 
fuse to  gratify  them  ?  Can  they  do  more,  or  can  they 
do  worse,  if  we  yield  this  point  ?  I  think  this  con- 
cession will  rather  fix  a  turnpike  to  prevent  their 


30  SPEECH    ON   AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

further  progress.  It  is  impossible  to  answer  for  bod- 
ies of  men.  But  I  am  sure  the  natural  effect  of  fidel- 
ity, clemency,  kindness  in  governors  is  peace,  good- 
will, order,  and  esteem,  on  the  part  of  the  governed. 
I  would  certainly,  at  least,  give  these  fair  principles  a 
fair  trial ;  which,  since  the  making  of  this  act  to  tliis 
hour,  they  never  have  had. 

Sir,  the  honorable  gentleman  having  spoken  what 
he  thought  necessary  upon  the  narrow  part  of  the 
subject,  I  have  given  him,  I  hope,  a  satisfactory  an- 
swer. He  next  presses  me,  by  a  variety  of  direct 
challenges  and  oblique  reflections,  to  say  something 
on  the  historical  part.  I  shall  therefore,  Sir,  open 
myself  fully  on  that  important  and  delicate  subject : 
not  for  the  sake  of  telling  you  a  long  story,  (which,  I 
know,  Mr.  Speaker,  you  are  not  particularly  fond  of,) 
but  for  the  sake  of  the  weighty  instruction  that,  I 
flatter  myself,  will  necessarily  result  from  it.  It 
shall  not  be  longer,  if  I  can  help  it,  than  so  serious  s\ 
matter  requires. 

Permit  me  then,  Sir,  to  lead  your  attention  very 
far  back, — back  to  the  Act  of  Navigation,  the  corner- 
stone of  the  policy  of  this  country  with  regard  to  its 
colonies.  Sir,  that  policy  was,  from  the  beginning, 
purely  commercial  ;  and  the  commercial  system  was 
wholly  restrictive.  It  was  the  system  of  a  monopoly. 
No  trade  was  let  loose  from  that  constraint,  but  mere- 
ly to  enable  the  colonists  to  dispose  of  what,  in  the 
course  of  your  trade,  you  could  not  take, — or  to  en- 
able them  to  dispose  of  such  articles  as  we  forced  upon 
them,  and  for  which,  without  some  degree  of  liberty, 
they  c-ould  not  pay.  Hence  all  your  specific  and  de- 
tailed enumerations  ;  hence  the  innumerable  checks 
and  counterchecks ;  hence  that  infinite  variety  of  paper 


SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION.  31 

chains  by  -wliicli  you  bind  together  this  complicated 
system  of  the  colonies.  This  principle  of  commercial 
monopoly  runs  through  no  less  than  twenty-nine  acts 
of  Parliament,  from  the  year  16G0  to  the  unfortunate 
period  of  17G4. 

In  all  those  acts  the  system  of  commerce  is  estab- 
lished as  that  from  whence  alone  you  proposed  to 
make  the  colonies  contribute  (I  mean  directly  and  by 
the  operation  of  your  superintending  legislative  pow- 
er) to  the  strength  of  the  empire.  I  venture  to  say, 
that,  during  that  whole  period,  a  Parliamentary  rev- 
enue from  thence  was  never  once  in  contemplation. 
Accordingly,  in  all  the  number  of  laws  passed  with 
regard  to  the  plantations,  the  words  which  distin- 
guish revenue  laws  specifically  as  such  were,  I  think, 
premeditately  avoided.  I  do  not  say,  Sir,  that  a  form 
of  words  alters  the  nature  of  the  law,  or  abridges  the 
power  of  the  lawgiver.  It  certainly  does  not.  How 
ever,  titles  and  formal  preambles  are  not  always  idle 
words  ;  and  the  lawyers  frequently  argue  from  tliem. 
I  state  these  facts  to  show,  not  what  was  your  right, 
but  what  has  been  your  settled  policy.  Our  revenue 
laws  have  usually  a  title,  purporting  their  being  grants; 
and  the  words  '■'■give  andgrant^^  usually  precede  the  en- 
acting parts.  Although  duties  were  imposed  on  Amer- 
ica in  acts  of  King  Cliarles  the  Second,  and  in  acts  of 
King  William,  no  one  title  of  giving  "  an  aid  to  his 
Majesty,"  or  any  other  of  the  usual  titles  to  revenue 
acts,  was  to  be  found  in  any  of  them  till  1764 ;  nor  were 
the  words  "give  and  grant "  in  any  preamble  until  the 
sixth  of  George  the  Second.  However,  the  title  of  this 
act  of  George  tbe  Second,  notwithstanding  tlie  words  of 
donation,  considers  it  merely  as  a  regulation  of  trade  : 
"  An  act  for  the  better  securing  of  the  trade  of  his  Maj- 


32  SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

esty's  sugar  colonies  in  America."  This  act  was  made 
on  a  compromise  of  all,  and  at  the  express  desire  of  a 
part,  of  tlie  colonies  themselves.  It  was  therefore  in 
some  measure  with  their  consent ;  and  having  a  title 
directly  purporting  only  a  commercial  regulation,  and 
being  in  truth  nothing  more,  the  words  were  passed 
by,  at  a  time  when  no  jealousy  was  entertained,  and 
thino-s  were  little  scrutinized.  Even  Governor  Ber- 
nard,  in  his  second  printed  letter,  dated  in  1763,  gives 
it  as  his  opinion,  that  "  it  was  an  act  of  prohibition, 
not  of  revenue."  This  is  certainly  true,  that  no  act 
avowedly  for  the  purpose  of  revenue,  and  with  the 
ordinary  title  and  recital  taken  together,  is  found  in 
the  statute-book  until  the  year  I  have  mentioned  : 
that  is,  the  year  1764.  All  before  this  period  stood 
on  commercial  regulation  and  restraint.  The  scheme 
of  a  colony  revenue  by  British  authority  appeared, 
therefore,  to  the  Americans  in  the  light  of  a  great  in- 
novation. The  words  of  Governor  Bernard's  ninth 
letter,  written  in  November,  1765,  state  this  idea  very 
strongly.  "  It  must,"  says  he,  "  have  been  supposed 
such  an  innovation  as  a  Parliamentary  taxation  would 
cause  a  great  alarm,  and  meet  with  much  opposition 
in  most  parts  of  America ;  it  was  quite  new  to  the 
people,  and  had  no  visible  bounds  set  to  it."  After 
stating  the  weakness  of  government  there,  he  says, 
"  Was  this  a  time  to  introduce  so  great  a  novelty  as  a 
Parliamentary  inland  taxation  in  America  ? "  What- 
ever the  right  might  have  been,  this  mode  of  using  it 
was  absolutely  new  in  policy  and  practice. 

Sir,  they  who  are  friends  to  the  schemes  of  Amer- 
ican revenue  say,  that  the  commercial  restraint  is  full 
as  hard  a  law  for  America  to  live  under.  I  think  so, 
too.     I  think  it,  if  uncompensated,  to  be  a  condition 


SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  33 

of  as  rigorous  servitude  as  men  can  be  sulDJect  to. 
But  America  bore  it  from  the  fundamental  Act' of 
Navigation  until  1764.  Why  ?  Because  men  do  bear 
the  inevitable  constitution  of  their  original  nature 
with  all  its  infirmities.  The  Act  of  Navigation  at- 
tended the  colonies  from  their  infancy,  grew  with 
their  growth,  and  strengthened  with  their  strength. 
They  were  confirmed  in  obedience  to  it  even  more 
by  usage  than  by  law.  They  scarcely  had  remem- 
bered a  time  when  they  were  not  subject  to  such  re- 
straint. Besides,  they  were  indemnified  for  it  by  a 
pecuniary  compensation.  Their  monopolist  happened 
to  be  one  of  the  richest  men  in  the  world.  By  his 
immense  capital  (primarily  employed,  not  for  their 
benefit,  but  his  own)  they  were  enabled  to  proceed 
with  their  fisheries,  their  agriculture,  their  ship- 
building, (and  their  trade,  too,  within  the  limits,)  in 
such  a  manner  as  got  far  the  start  of  the  slow,  lan- 
guid operations  of  unassisted  Nature.  This  capital 
was  a  hot-bed  to  them.  Nothing  in  the  history  of 
mankind  is  like  their  progress.  For  my  part,  I  never 
cast  an  eye  on  their  flourishing  commerce,  and  their 
cultivated  and  commodious  life,  but  they  seem  to  me 
rather  ancient  nations  grown  to  perfection  through  a 
long  series  of  fortunate  events,  and  a  train  of  success- 
ful  industry,  accumulating  wealth  in  many  centuries, 
than  the  colonies  of  yesterday,  —  than  a  set  of  misera- 
ble outcasts  a  few  years  ago,  not  so  much  sent  as 
thrown  out  on  the  bleak  and  barren  shore  of  a  deso- 
late wilderness  three  thousand  miles  from  all  civil- 
ized intercourse. 

All  this  was  done  by  England  whilst  England  pur- 
sued trade  and  forgot  revenue.  You  not  only  ac- 
quired commerce,  ])ut  you  actually  created  the  very 

VOL.  II.  3 


34  SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

objects  of  trade  in  America;  and  by  that  creation 
you  raised  the  trade  of  this  kingdom  at  least  four- 
fold. America  had  the  compensation  of  your  capital, 
which  made  her  bear  her  servitude.  She  had  another 
compensation,  which  you  are  now  going  to  take  away 
from  her.  She  had,  except  the  commercial  restraint, 
every  characteristic  mark  of  a  free  people  in  all  her 
internal  concerns.  She  had  the  image  of  the  British 
Constitution.  She  had  the  substance.  She  was  taxed 
by  her  own  representatives.  She  chose  most  of  her 
own  magistrates.  She  paid  them  all.  She  had  in 
effect  the  sole  disposal  of  her  own  internal  govern- 
ment. This  whole  state  of  commercial  servitude  and 
civil  liberty,  taken  together,  is  certainly  not  perfect 
freedom  ;  but  comparing  it  with  the  ordinary  circum 
stances  of  human  nature,  it  was  an  happy  and  a  lib- 
eral condition. 

I  know,  Sir,  that  great  and  not  unsuccessful  pains 
have  been  taken  to  inflame  our  minds  by  an  outcry, 
in  this  House,  and  out  of  it,  that  in  America  the  Act 
of  Navigation  neither  is  or  never  was  obeyed.  But 
if  you  take  the  colonies  through,  I  aflEirm  that  its  au- 
thority never  was  disputed,  —  that  it  was  nowhere  dis- 
puted for  any  length  of  time,  —  and,  on  the  whole, 
that  it  was  well  observed.  Wherever  the  act  pressed 
hard,  many  individuals,  indeed,  evaded  it.  This  is 
nothing.  These  scattered  individuals  never  denied 
the  law,  and  never  obeyed  it.  Just  as  it  happens, 
whenever  the  laws  of  trade,  whenever  the  laws  of  rev- 
enue, press  hard  upon  the  people  in  England :  in  that 
case  all  your  shores  are  full  of  contraband.  Your 
right  to  give  a  monopoly  to  the  East  India  Company, 
your  right  to  lay  immense  duties  on  French  brandy, 
are  not  disputed  in  England.     You  do  not  make  this 


SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  35 

charge  on  any  man.  But  you  know  that  there  is  not 
a  creek  from  Pentland  Frith  to  the  Isle  of  "Wight  in 
which  tliey  do  not  smuggle  immense  quantities  of 
teas,  East  India  goods,  and  brandies.  I  take  it  for 
granted  that  the  authority  of  Governor  Bernard  in 
this  point  is  indisputable.  Speaking  of  these  laws,  as 
they  regarded  that  part  of  America  now  in  so  un- 
happy a  condition,  he  says,  "  I  believe  they  are  no- 
where better  supported  than  in  this  province :  I  do 
not  pretend  that  it  is  entirely  free  from  a  breach 
of  these  laws,  but  that  such  a  breach,  if  discovered, 
is  justly  punished."  What  more  can  you  say  of  the 
obedience  to  any  laws  in  any  country?  An  obedi- 
ence to  these  laws  formed  the  acknowledgment,  insti- 
tuted by  yourselves,  for  your  superiority,  and  was 
the  payment  you  originally  imposed  for  your  protec- 
tion. 

Whether  you  were  right  or  wrong  in  establishing 
the  colonies  on  the  principles  of  commercial  monop- 
oly, rather  than  on  that  of  revenue,  is  at  this  day  a 
problem  of  mere  speculation.  You  cannot  have  both 
by  the  same  authority.  To  join  together  the  re- 
straints of  an  universal  internal  and  external  mo- 
nopoly with  an  universal  internal  and  external  tax- 
ation is  an  unnatural  union, — perfect,  uncompensated 
slavery.  You  have  long  since  decided  for  yourseli 
and  them  ;  and  you  and  they  have  prospered  exceed- 
ingly under  that  decision. 

This  nation.  Sir,  never  thought  of  departing  from 
that  choice  until  the  period  immediately  on  the  close 
of  the  last  war.  Then  a  scheme  of  government,  new 
in  many  things,  seemed  to  have  been  adopted.  I  saw, 
or  thought  I  saw,  several  symptoms  of  a  great  change, 
wliilst  I  sat  in  your  gallery,  a  good  while  l)cfore  I  liad 


36  SPEECH    ON    AMEEICAN    TAXATION. 

the  honor  of  a  seat  in  this  House.  At  that  period 
the  necessity  was  establislied  of  keeping  up  no  less 
than  twenty  new  regiments,  with  twenty  colonels 
capable  of  seats  in  this  Plouse.  This  scheme  was 
adopted  with  very  general  applause  from  all  sides,  at 
the  very  time  that,  by  your  conquests  in  America, 
your  danger  from  foreign  attempts  in  that  part  of 
the  world  was  much  lessened,  or  indeed  rather  quite 
over.  When  this  huge  increase  of  military  establish- 
ment was  resolved  on,  a  revenue  was  to  be  found  to 
support  so  great  a  burden.  Country  gentlemen,  the 
great  patrons  of  economy,  and  the  great  resistors  of 
a  standing  armed  force,  would  not  have  entered  with 
much  alacrity  into  the  vote  for  so  large  and  so  expen- 
sive an  army,  if  they  had  been  very  sure  that  they 
were  to  continue  to  pay  for  it.  But  hopes  of  another 
kind  were  held  out  to  them  ;  and  in  particular,  I  well 
remember  that  Mr.  Townshend,  in  a  brilliant  ha- 
rangue on  this  subject,  did  dazzle  them  by  playing 
before  their  eyes  the  image  of  a  revenue  to  be  raised 
in  America. 

Here  began  to  dawn  the  first  glimmerings  of  this 
new  colony  system.  It  appeared  more  distinctly  af- 
terwards, when  it  was  devolved  upon  a  person  to 
whom,  on  other  accounts,  this  country  owes  very 
great  obligations.  I  do  believe  that  he  had  a  very 
serious  desire  to  benefit  the  public.  But  with  no 
small  study  of  the  detail,  he  did  not  seem  to  have  his 
view,  at  least  equally,  carried  to  the  total  circuit  of 
our  affairs.  He  generally  considered  his  objects  in 
lights  tliat  were  rather  too  detached.  Whether  the 
business  of  an  American  revenue  was  imposed  upon 
him  altogether,  —  whether  it  was  entirely  the  result 
of  his  own  speculation,  or,  what  is  more  probable,  that 


SPEECH    ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  37 

his  own  ideas  rather  coincided  with  the  instructions 
ho  had  received,  —  certain  it  is,  that,  with  the  best 
intentions  in  the  world,  lie  first  brought  this  fatal 
scheme  into  form,  and  established  it  by  Act  of  Par 
liament. 

No  man  can  believe,  that,  at  this  time  of  day,  I 
mean  to  lean  on  the  venerable  memory  of  a  great 
man,  whose  loss  we  deplore  in  common.  Our  little 
party  differences  have  been  long  ago  composed  ;  and 
I  have  acted  more  with  him,  and  certainly  with  more 
pleasure  with  him,  than  ever  I  acted  against  him. 
Undoubtedly  Mr.  Grenville  was  a  first-rate  figure  in 
this  country.  With  a  masculine  understanding,  and 
a  stout  and  resolute  heart,  he  had  an  application  un- 
dissipated  and  unwearied.  He  took  public  business, 
not  as  a  duty  which  he  was  to  fulfil,  but  as  a  pleasure 
he  was  to  enjoy  ;  and  he  seemed  to  have  no  delight 
out  of  this  House,  except  in  such  things  as  some  way 
related  to  the  business  that  was  to  be  done  within  it. 
If  he  was  ambitious,  I  will  say  this  for  him,  his  ambi- 
tion was  of  a  noble  and  generous  strain.  It  was  to 
raise  himself,  not  by  the  low,  pimping  politics  of  a 
court,  but  to  win  his  way  to  power  through  the  labo- 
rious gradations  of  public  service,  and  to  secure  him- 
self a  well-earned  rank  in  Parliament  by  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  its  constitution  and  a  perfect  practice 
in  all  its  business. 

Sir,  if  such  a  man  fell  into  errors,  it  must  be  from 
defects  not  intrinsical ;  they  must  be  rather  sought 
in  the  particular  habits  of  his  life,  which,  though 
they  do  not  alter  the  groundwork  of  character,  yet 
tinge  it  with  their  own  hue.  Ho  was  bred  in  a  pro- 
fession. He  was  bred  to  the  law,  which  is,  ii.  my 
opinion,  one  of  the  first  and  noblest  of  human  sci- 


88  SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

ences,  —  a  scienco  which  does  more  to  quicken  and 
invigorate  the  understanding  than  all  the  other  kinds 
of  learning  put  together ;  but  it  is  not  apt,  except  in 
persons  very  happily  horn,  to  open  and  to  liberalize 
the  mind  exactly  in  the  same  proportion.  Passing 
from  that  study,  he  did  not  go  very  largely  into  the 
world,  but  plunged  into  business,  —  I  mean  into  the 
business  of  office,  and  the  limited  and  fixed  methods 
and  forms  established  there.  Much  knowledge  is  to 
be  had,  undoubtedly,  in  that  line ;  and  there  is  no 
knowledge  which  is  not  valuable.  But  it  may  be 
truly  said,  that  men  too  much  conversant  in  office 
are  rarely  minds  of  remarkable  enlargement.  Their 
habits  of  office  are  apt  to  give  them  a  turn  to  think 
the  substance  of  business  not  to  be  much  more  impor- 
tant than  the  forms  in  which  it  is  conducted.  These 
forms  are  adapted  to  ordinary  occasions  ;  and  there- 
fore persons  who  are  nurtured  in  office  do  admirably 
well  as  long  as  things  go  on  in  their  common  order ; 
but  when  the  high-roads  are  broken  up,  and  the  wa- 
ters out,  when  a  new  and  troubled  scene  is  opened, 
and  the  file  affords  no  precedent,  then  it  is  that  a 
greater  knowledge  of  mankind,  and  a  far  more  exten 
sive  comprehension  of  things  is  requisite,  tha.n  ever 
office  gave,  or  than  office  can  ever  give.  Mr.  Gren- 
ville  thought  better  of  the  wisdom  and  power  of  hu- 
man legislation  tlian  in  truth  it  deserves.  He  con- 
ceived, and  many  conceived  along  with  him,  that  the 
flourishing  trade  of  this  country  was  greatly  owing  to 
law  and  institution,  and  not  quite  so  much  to  liberty  : 
for  but  too  many  are  apt  to  believe  regulation  to  be 
commerce,  and  taxes  to  be  revenue.  Among  regula- 
tions, that  which  stood  first  in  reputation  was  his 
idol :  I  mean  the  Act  of  Navigation.     He  has  often 


SPEECH   ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION,  39 

professed  it  to  be  so.  The  policy  of  that  act  is,  I 
readily  admit,  in  many  respects  well  understood. 
But  I  do  say,  that,  if  the  act  be  suffered  to  run  the 
full  length  of  its  principle,  and  is  not  changed  and 
modified  according  to  the  change  of  times  and  the 
fluctuation  of  circumstances,  it  must  do  great  mis- 
chief, and  frequently  even  defeat  its  own  purpose. 

After  the  war,  and  in  the  last  years  of  it,  the  trade 
oi  America  had  increased  far  beyond  the  speculations 
of  the  most  sanguine  imaginations.  It  swelled  out 
on  every  side.  It  filled  all  its  proper  channels  to  the 
brim.  It  overflowed  with  a  rich  redundance,  and 
breaking  its  banks  on  the  right  and  on  the  left,  it 
spread  out  upon  some  places  where  it  was  indeed 
improper,  upon  others  where  it  was  only  irregular. 
It  is  the  nature  of  all  greatness  not  to  be  exact ;  and 
great  trade  will  always  be  attended  with  considerable 
abuses.  Tlie  contraband  will  always  keep  pace  in 
some  measure  with  the  fair  trade.  It  should  stand 
as  a  fundamental  maxim,  that  no  vulgar  precaution 
ought  to  be  employed  in  the  cure  of  evils  which  are 
closely  connected  with  the  cause  of  our  prosperity. 
Perhaps  this  great  person  turned  his  eyes  somewhat 
less  than  was  just  towards  the  incredible  increase  of 
the  fair  trade,  and  looked  with  something  of  too  ex- 
quisite a  jealousy  towards  the  contraband.  He  cer- 
tainly felt  a  singular  degree  of  anxiety  on  the  subject, 
and  even  began  to  act  from  that  passion  earlier  than 
is  commonly  imagined.  For  whilst  he  was  First  Lord 
of  the  Admiralty,  though  not  strictly  called  upon  in 
his  official  line,  he  presented  a  very  strong  memo- 
rial to  the  Lords  of  the  Treasury,  (my  Lord  Bute 
was  then  at  the  head  of  the  board,)  heavily  complain- 
ing of  the  growth  of  the  illicit  commerce  in  America. 


40  SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

Some  mischief  happened  even  at  that  time  from  this 
over-earnest  zeal.  Much  greater  happened  after- 
wards, when  it  operated  with  greater  power  in  the 
highest  department  of  the  finances.  The  bonds  of 
the  Act  of  Navigation  were  straitened  so  much  tliat 
America  was  on  the  point  of  liaving  no  trade,  either 
contraband  or  legitimate.  They  found,  under  the 
construction  and  execution  then  used,  tlie  act  no 
longer  tying,  but  actually  strangling  them.  All  this 
coming  with  new  enumerations  of  commodities,  with 
regidations  which  in  a  manner  put  a  stop  to  the  mu- 
tual coasting  intercourse  of.  the  colonies,  with  the 
appointment  of  courts  of  admiralty  under  various 
improper  circumstances,  with  a  sudden  extinction  of 
the  paper  currencies,  with  a  compulsory  provision  for 
the  quartering  of  soldiers,  —  the  people  of  America 
thought  themselves  proceeded  against  as  delinquents, 
or,  at  best,  as  people  under  suspicion  of  delinquency, 
and  in  such  a  manner  as  they  imagined  their  recent 
services  in  the  war  did  not  at  all  merit.  Any  of 
these  innumerable  regulations,  perhaps,  would  not 
have  alarmed  alone  ;  some  might  be  thought  reason- 
able ;  the  multitude  struck  them  with  terror. 

But  the  grand  manoeuvre  in  that  business  of  new 
regulating  the  colonies  was  the  fifteenth  act  of  the 
fourth  of  George  the  Third,  which,  besides  containing 
several  of  the  matters  to  which  I  have  just  alluded, 
opened  a  new  principle.  And  here  properly  began 
the  second  period  of  the  policy  of  this  country  with 
regard  to  the  colonies,  by  which  the  scheme  of  a  reg- 
ular plantation  Parliamentary  revenue  was  adopted  in 
theory  and  settled  in  practice :  a  revenue  not  substi- 
tuted in  the  place  of,  but  superadded  to,  a  monopoly ; 
which  monopoly  was  enforced  at  the  same  time  with 


SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  41 

additional  strictness,  and  the  execution  put  into  mili- 
taiy  hands. 

This  act,  Sir,  had  for  the  first  time  the  title  of 
•'  granting  duties  in  the  colonies  and  plantations  of 
America,"  and  for  the  first  time  it  was  asserted  in  the 
preamble  "  that  it  was  just  and  necessary  that  a  rev- 
enue should  be  raised  there";  then  came  tlie  tech- 
nical words  of  "  giving  and  granting."  And  thus  a 
complete  American  revenue  act  was  made  in  all  the 
forms,  and  with  a  full  avowal  of  the  right,  equity,  pol- 
icy, and  even  necessity,  of  taxing  the  colonies,  without 
any  formal  consent  of  theirs.  There  are  contained 
also  in  the  preamble  to  that  act  these  very  remarkable 
words,  —  the  Commons,  &c.,  "  being  desirous  to  make 
some  provision  in  the  present  session  of  Parliament 
towards  raising  the  said  revenue."  By  these  words 
it  appeared  to  the  colonies  that  this  act  was  but  a 
beginning  of  sorrows,  —  that  every  session  was  to  pro- 
duce something  of  the  same  kind,  —  that  we  were  to 
go  on,  from  day  to  day,  in  charging  them  with  such 
taxes  as  we  pleased,  for  such  a  military  force  as  we 
sliould  tliink  proper.  Had  this  plan  been  pursued, 
it  was  evident  that  the  provincial  assemblies,  in  which 
the  Americans  felt  all  their  portion  of  importance, 
and  beheld  their  sole  image  of  freedom,  were  ipso 
facto  annihilated.  This  ill  prospect  before  them 
seemed  to  be  boundless  in  extent  and  endless  in 
duration.  Sir,  they  were  not  mistaken.  The  min- 
istry valued  themselves  when  this  act  passed,  and 
when  they  gave  notice  of  the  Stamp  Act,  tliat  both  of 
tiic  duties  came  very  short  of  their  ideas  of  American 
taxation.  Great  was  the  applause  of  this  measure 
here.  In  England  we  cried  out  for  new  taxes  on 
America,  whilst  they  cried  out  tliat  they  were  nearly 


42  SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

crushed  with  those  which  the  war  and  their  own  grants 
had  brought  upon  them. 

Sir,  it  has  been  said  in  the  debate,  that, when  the 
first  American  revenue  act  (the  act  in  1764,  impos- 
ing the  port-dnties)  passed,  the  Americans  did  not 
object  to  the  principle.  It  is  true  they  touched  it  but 
very  tenderly.  It  was  not  a  direct  attack.  They 
were,  it  is  true,  as  yet  novices,  —  as  yet  unaccus- 
tomed to  direct  attacks  upon  any  of  the  rights  of ' 
Parliament.  The  duties  were  port-duties,  like  those 
they  had  been  accustomed  to  bear, — with  this  differ- 
ence, that  the  title  was  not  the  same,  the  preamble 
not  the  same,  and  the  spirit  altogether  unlike.  But 
of  what  service  is  this  observation  to  the  cause  of 
those  that  make  it  ?  It  is  a  full  refutation  of  the 
pretence  for  their  present  cruelty  to  America ;  for  it 
shows,  out  of  their  own  mouths,  that  our  colonies 
were  backward  to  enter  into  the  present  vexatious 
and  ruinous  controversy. 

There  is  also  another  circulation  abroad,  (spread 
with  a  malignant  intention,  which  I  cannot  attribute 
to  those  who  say  the  same  thing  in  this  House,)  that 
Mr.  Grenville  gave  the  colony  agents  an  option  for 
their  assemblies  to  tax  themselves,  which  they  had  re- 
fused. I  find  that  much  stress  is  laid  on  this,  as  a 
fact.  However,  it  happens  neither  to  be  true  nor  pos- 
sible. I  will  observe,  first,  that  Mr.  Grenville  never 
thought  fit  to  make  this  apology  for  himself  in  the  in- 
numerable debates  that  were  had  upon  the  subject. 
He  might  have  proposed  to  the  colony  agents,  that 
they  should  agree  in  some  mode  of  taxation  as  the 
ground  of  an  act  of  Parliament.  But  he  never  could 
have  proposed  that  they  should  tax  themselves  on  re- 
quisition, which  is  the  assertion  of  the  day.    Indeed, 


SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  43 

Mr.  Grciiville  well  knew  that  the  colony  agents 
could  have  no  general  powers  to  consent  to  it ;  and 
they  had  no  time  to  consult  their  assemblies  for  par- 
ticular powers,  before  he  passed  his  first  revenue  act. 
If  you  compare  dates,  you  will  find  it  impossible. 
Burdened  as  the  agents  knew  the  colonies  were  at 
that  time,  they  could  not  give  the  least  hope  of  such 
grants.  His  own  favorite  governor  was  of  opinion 
that  the  Americans  were  not  then  taxable  objects. 

"  Nor  was  the  time  less  favorable  to  the  equity  of 
such  a  taxation.  I  don't  mean  to  dispute  the  reason- 
ableness of  America  contributing  to  the  charges  of 
Great  Britain,  ivhen  she  is  able  ;  nor,  I  believe,  would 
the  Americans  themselves  have  disputed  it  at  a  proper 
time  and  season.  But  it  should  be  considered,  that 
the  American  governments  themselves  have,  in  the 
prosecution  of  the  late  war,  contracted  very  large 
debts,  which  it  will  take  some  years  to  pay  off,  and  in 
the  mean  time  occasion  very  burdensome  taxes  for  that 
purpose  only.  For  instance,  this  government,  which  is 
as  much  beforehand  as  any,  raises  every  year  37,500Z. 
sterling  for  sinking  their  debt,  and  must  continue  it 
for  four  years  longer  at  least  before  it  will  be  clear." 

These  are  the  words  of  Governor  Bernard's  letter 
to  a  member  of  the  old  ministry,  and  which  he  has 
since  printed. 

Mr.  Grenville  could  not  have  made  this  proposition 
to  the  agents  for  another  reason.  He  was  of  opin- 
ion, wliich  he  has  declared  in  this  House  an  hundred 
times,  that  the  colonies  could  not  legally  grant  any 
revenue  to  the  crown,  and  that  infinite  mischiefs 
would  be  the  consequence  of  such  a  power.  When 
Mr.  Grenville  had  passed  the  first  revenue  act,  and  in 
the  same  session  had  made  this  House  come  to  a  res- 


44  SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

olution  for  laying  a  stamp-duty  on  America,  between 
that  time  and  tlie  passing,  the  Stamp  Act  into  a  law 
he  told  a  considerable  and  most  respectable  mercliant, 
a  member  of  this  House,  whom  I  am  truly  sorry  I  do 
not  now  see  in  his  place,  when  he  represented  aganist 
this  proceeding,  that,  if  the  stamp-duty  was  disliked, 
he  was  willing  to  exchange  it  for  any  other  equally 
productive,  —  but  tliat,  if  he  objected  to  the  Ameri- 
cans being  taxed  by  Parliament,  he  might  save  him- 
self the  trouble  of  the  discussion,  as  he  was  determined 
on  the  measure.  This  is  the  fact,  and,  if  you  please, 
I  will  mention  a  very  unquestionable  authority  for  it. 
Thus,  Sir,  I  have  disposed  of  this  falsehood.  But 
falsehood  has  a  perennial  spring.  It  is  said  that  no 
conjecture  could  be  made  of  the  dislike  of  the  colo- 
nies to  the  principle.  This  is  as  untrue  as  tlic  other. 
After  the  resolution  of  the  House,  and  before  the 
passing  of  the  Stamp  Act,  the  colonies  of  Massachu- 
setts Bay  and  New  York  did  send  remonstrances 
objecting  to  this  mode  of  Parliamentary  taxation. 
What  was  the  consequence  ?  They  were  suppressed, 
they  were  put  under  the  table,  notwithstanding  an  or- 
der of  Council  to  the  contrary,  by  the  ministry  which 
composed  the  very  Council  that  had  made  the  order ; 
and  thus  the  House  proceeded  to  its  business  of  taxing 
without  tlie  least  regular  knowledge' of  the  objections 
which  were  made  to  it.  But  to  give  that  House  its 
due,  it  was  not  over-desirous  to  receive  information 
or  to  hear  remonstrance.  On  the  15th  of  February, 
1765,  whilst  the  Stamp  Act  was  under  deliberation, 
they  refused  with  scorn  even  so  much  as  to  receive 
four  petitions  presented  from  so  respectable  colonies 
as  Connecticut,  Rhode  Island,  Virginia,  and  Carolina, 
besides  one  from  the  traders  of  Jamaica.     As  to  tlie 


SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN  TAXATION.  45 

colonics,  they  had  no  alternative  left  to  them  but  to 
disobey,  or  to  pay  the  taxes  imposed  by  that  Parlia- 
ment, Avhicli  was  not  suffered,  or  did  not  suffer  itself, 
even  to  hear  them  remonstrate  upon  the  subject. 

This  was  the  state  of  the  colonies  before  his  Majes- 
ty thought  fit  to  change  his  ministers.  It  stands  upon 
no  authority  of  mine.  It  is  proved  by  uncontroverti- 
ble records.  Tlic  honorable  gentleman  has  desired 
some  of  us  to  lay  our  hands  upon  our  hearts  and  an- 
swer to  his  queries  upon  the  historical  part  of  this  con- 
sideration, and  by  his  manner  (as  well  as  my  eyes 
could  discern  it)  he  seemed  to  address  himself  to  me. 

Sir,  I  will  answer  him  as  clearly  as  I  am  able,  and 
with  great  openness  :  I  have  nothing  to  conceal.  In 
the  year  sixty-five,  being  in  a  very  private  station, 
far  enough  from  any  liriC  of  business,  and  not  having 
the  honor  of  a  seat  in  this  House,  it  was  my  fortune, 
unknowing  and  unknown  to  the  then  ministry,  by  the 
intervention  of  a  common  friend,  to  become  connected 
with  a  very  noble  person,  and  at  the  head  of  the  Treas- 
ury Department.  It  was, indeed,  in  a  situation  of  little 
rank  and  no  consequence,  suitable  to  the  mediocrity 
of  my  talents  and  pretensions,  —  but  a  situation  near 
enough  to  enable  me  to  see,  as  well  as  others,  what 
was  going  on ;  and  I  did  see  in  that  noble  person 
such  sound  principles,  such  an  enlargement  of  mind, 
such  clear  and  sagacious  sense,  and  such  unshaken 
fortitude,  as  have  bound  me,  as  well  as  others  much 
better  than  me,  by  an  inviolable  attachment  to  him 
from  that  time  forward.  Sir,  Lord  Rockingham  very 
early  in  that  summer  received  a  strong  representation 
from  many  weighty  English  merchants  and  manufac- 
turers, from  governors  of  provinces  and  commanders 
of  men-of-war,  against  almost  the  whole  of  the  Amer- 


46  SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

ican  commercial  regulations,  —  and  particularly  with 
regard  to  the  total  ruin  which  was  threatened  to  the 
Spanish  trade.  I  believe,  Sir,  the  noble  lord  soon 
saw  his  way  in  this  business.  But  he  did  not  rashly 
determine  against  acts  which  it  might  be  supposed 
were  the  result  of  much  deliberation.  However,  Sir^ 
he  scarcely  began  to  open  the  ground,  when  the 
whole  veteran  body  of  office  took  the  alarm.  A  vio- 
lent outcry  of  all  (except  those  who  knew  and  felt 
the  mischief)  was  raised  against  any  alteration.  Oil 
one  hand,  his  attempt  was  a  direct  violation  of  trca 
ties  and  public  law ;  on  the  other,  the  Act  of  Naviga 
tion  and  all  the  corps  of  trade-laws  were  drawn  up 
ill  array  against  it. 

The  first  step  the  noble  lord  took  was,  to  have  the 
opinion  of  his  excellent,  learned,  and  ever-lamented 
friend,  the  late  Mr.  Yorke,  then  Attorney-General,  on 
the  point  of  law.  When  he  knew  that  formally  and 
officially  which  in  substance  he  had  known  before, 
he  immediately  dispatched  orders  to  redress  the  griev- 
ance. But  I  will  say  it  for  the  then  minister,  he  is  of 
that  constitution  of  mind,  that  I  know  he  would  have 
issued,  on  the  same  critical  occasion,  the  very  same 
orders,  if  the  acts  of  trade  had  been,  as  they  were  not, 
directly  against  him,  and  would  have  cheerfully  sub- 
mitted to  the  equity  of  Parliament  for  his  indemnity. 

On  the  conclusion  of  this  business  of  the  Spanish 
trade,  the  news  of  the  troubles  on  account  of  the 
Stamp  Act  arrived  in  England.  It  was  not  until  the 
end  of  October  that  these  accounts  were  received. 
No  sooner  had  the  sound  of  that  mighty  tempest 
reached  us  in  England,  than  the  whole  of  the  tlien 
opposition,  instead  of  feeling  humbled  by  the  un- 
happy issue  of  their  measures,  seemed  to  be  infinitely 


SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  47 

elated,  and  cried  out,  that  the  ministry,  from  envy 
to  the  glory  of  their  predecessors,  were  prepared  to 
repeal  the  Stamp  Act.  Near  nine  years  after,  the 
honorable  gentleman  takes  quite  opposite  ground,  and 
now  challenges  me  to  put  my  hand  to  my  heart  and 
say  whether  the  ministry  had  resolved  on  the  repeal 
till  a  considerable  time  after  the  meeting  of  Parlia- 
ment. Though  I  do  not  very  well  know  what  the 
honorable  gentleman  wishes  to  infer  from  the  admis- 
sion or  from  the  denial  of  this  fact  on  which  he  so 
earnestly  adjures  me,  I  do  put  my  hand  on  my  heart 
and  assure  him  that  they  did  not  come  to  a  resolution 
directly  to  repeal.  They  weighed  this  matter  as  its 
difficulty  and  importance  required.  They  considered 
maturely  among  themselves.  They  consulted  with 
all  who  could  give  advice  or  information.  It  was 
not  determined  until  a  little  before  the  meeting  of 
Parliament ;  but  it  was  determined,  and  the  main 
lines  of  their  own  plan  marked  out,  before  that 
meeting.  Two  questions  arose.  (I  hope  I  am  not 
going  into  a  narrative  troublesome  to  the  House.) 

[A  cry  of  "  Go  on,  go  on  !  "] 

The  first  of  the  two  considerations  was,  whether 
the  repeal  should  be  total,  or  whether  only  partial, — 
taking  out  everything  burdensome  and  productive, 
and  reserving  only  an  empty  acknowledgment,  such  as 
a  stamp  on  cards  or  dice.  The  other  question  was, 
on  what  principle  the  act  should  be  repealed.  On 
this  head  also  two  principles  were  started.  One,  that 
the  legislative  rights  of  this  country  with  regard  to 
America  were  not  entire,  but  had  certain  restrictions 
and  limitations.  The  other  principle  was,  that  taxes 
of  this  kind  were  contrary  to  the  fundamental  princi- 
ples of  commerce  on  which  the  colonies  were  founded, 


48  SPEECH    ON   AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

and  contrary  to  every  idea  of  political  equity,  ■ —  by 
which  equity  we  are  bound  as  much  as  possible  to 
extend  the  spirit  and  benefit  of  the  British  Constitu- 
tion to  every  part  of  the  British  dominions.  The 
option,  both  ol  the  measure  and  of  the  principle  of 
repeal,  was  made  before  the  session ;  and  I  wonder 
how  any  one  can  read  the  king's  speech  at  the  opening 
of  that  session,  without  seeing  in  that  speech  both  the 
repeal  and  the  Declaratory  Act  very  sufficiently  cray- 
oned out.    Those  who  cannot  see  this  can  see  nothing. 

Surely  the  honorable  gentleman  will  not  think  that 
a  great  deal  less  time  than  was  then  employed  ought 
to  have  been  spent  in  deliberation,  when  he  considers 
that  the  news  of  the  troubles  did  not  arrive  till  to- 
wards the  end  of  October.  The  Parliament  sat  to  fill 
the  vacancies  on  the  14th  day  of  December,  and  on 
business  the  14th  of  the  following  January. 

Sir,  a  partial  repeal,  or,  as  the  hon-ton  of  the  court 
then  was,  a  modification^  would  have  satisfied  a  timid, 
unsystematic,  procrastinating  ministry,  as  such  a  meas- 
ure has  since  done  such  a  ministry.  A  modification 
is  the  constant  resource  of  weak,  undeciding  minds. 
To  repeal  by  a  denial  of  our  right  to  tax  in  the  pre- 
amble (and  this,  too,  did  not  want  advisers)  would 
have  cut,  in  the  heroic  style,  the  Gordian  knot  with  a. 
sword.  Either  measure  woTild  have  cost  no  more 
than  a  day's  debate.  But  when  the  total  repeal  was 
adopted,  and  adopted  on  principles  of  policy,  of 
equity,  and  of  commerce,  this  plan  made  it  necessa- 
ry to  enter  into  many  and  difficult  measures.  It  be- 
came necessary  to  open  a  very  large  field  of  evidence 
commensurate  to  these  extensive  views.  But  then 
this  labor  did  knights'  service.  It  opened  the  eyes  of 
several  to  the  true  state  of  the  American  affairs  ;  it 


SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  49 

enlarged  tlieir  ideas  ;  it  removed  prejudices ;  and  it 
conciliated  the  opinions  and  affections  of  men.  The 
nohle  lord  who  then  took  the  lead  in  administration, 
my  honorable  friend  *  under  me,  and  a  right  honora- 
ble gentleman  f  (if  he  will  not  reject  his  share,  and  it 
was  a  large  one,  of  this  business)  exerted  the  most 
laudable  industry  in  bringing  before  you  the  fullest, 
most  impartial,  and  least  garbled  body  of  evidence 
that  ever  was  produced  to  this  House.  I  think  the 
inquiry  lasted  in  the  committee  for  six  weeks  ;  and 
at  its  conclusion,  this  House,  by  an  independent,  no- 
ble, spirited,  and  unexpected  majority,  by  a  majority 
that  will  redeem  all  the  acts  ever  done  by  majorities 
in  Parliament,  in  the  teeth  of  all  the  old  mercenary 
Swiss  of  state,  in  despite  of  all  the  speculators  and 
augurs  of  political  events,  in  defiance  of  the  whole 
embattled  legion  of  veteran  pensioners  and  practised 
instruments  of  a  court,  gave  a  total  repeal  to  the 
Stamp  Act,  and  (if  it  had  been  so  permitted)  a  last- 
ing peace  to  this  whole  empire. 

I  state.  Sir,  these  particulars,  because  this  act  of 
spirit  and  fortitude  has  lately  been,  in  the  circulation 
of  the  season,  and  in  some  hazarded  declamations  in 
this  House,  attributed  to  timidity.  If,  Sir,  the  con- 
duct of  ministry,  in  proposing  the  repeal,  had  arisen 
from  timidity  with  regard  to  themselves,  it  would 
have  been  greatly  to  be  condemned.  Interested  ti- 
midity disgraces  as  much  in  the  cabinet  as  personal 
timidity  docs  in  the  field.  But  timidity  with  regard 
to  the  well-being  of  our  country  is  heroic  virtue. 
The  noble  lord  who  then  conducted  affairs,  and  his 
worthy  colleagues,  whilst  they  trembled  at  the  pros- 
pect of  such  distresses  as  you  have  since  brought  upon 

*  Mr.  Dowdcswell.  .      f  General  Conway,    . 

VOL.    II.  4 


50  SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

yourselves,  were  not  afraid  steadily  to  look  in  the  face 
that  glaring  and  dazzling  influence  at  which  the  cye.s 
of  eagles  have  blenched.  He  looked  in  the  face  one 
of  the  ablest,  and,  let  me  say,  not  the  most  scrupulous 
oppositions,  that  perhaps  ever  was  in  this  House  ;  and 
withstood  it,  unaided  by  even  one  of  the  usual  sup- 
ports of  administration.  He  did  this,  when  he  re- 
pealed the  Stamp  Act.  He  looked  in  the  face  a  per- 
son he  had  long  respected  and  regarded,  and  whose 
aid  was  then  particularly  wanting :  I  mean  Lord 
Chatham.  He  did  this  when  he  passed  the  Declara- 
tory Act. 

It  is  now  given  out,  for  the  usual  purposes,  by  the 
usual  emissaries,  that  Lord  Rockingham  did  not  con- 
sent to  the  repeal  of  this  act  until  he  was  bullied  into 
it  by  Lord  Chatham ;  and  the  reporters  have  gone 
so  far  as  publicly  to  assert,  in  an  hundred  companies, 
that  the  honorable  gentleman  under  the  gallery,*  who 
proposed  the  repeal  in  the  American  comiViittee,  had 
another  set  of  resolutions  in  his  pocket,  directly  the 
reverse  of  those  he  moved.  These  artifices  of  a  des- 
perate cause  are  at  this  time  spread  abroad,  with  in- 
credible care,  in  every  part  of  the  town,  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest  companies ;  as  if  the  industry 
of  the  circulation  were  to  make  amends  for  the  ab- 
surdity of  the  report. 

Sir,  whether  the  noble  lord  is  of  a  complexion  to- 
be  bullied  by  Lord  Cliatham,  or  by  any  man,  I  must 
submit  to  those  who  know  him.  I  confess,  when  I 
look  back  to  that  time,  I  consider  him  as  placed  in 
one  of  the  most  trying  situations  in  which,  perhaps, 
any  man  ever  stood.  In  the  House  of  Peers  there 
were  very  few  of  the  ministry,  out  of  the  noble  lord's 

*  General  Conway. 


SPEECH    OX    AMERICAN    TAXATION.  51 

own  particular  connection,  (except  Lord  Egmont, 
who  acted,  as  far  as  I  could  discern,  an  honorable 
and  manly  part,)  that  did  not  look  to  some  other  fu- 
ture arrangement,  which  warped  his  politics.  There 
were  in  both  Houses  new  and  menacing  appearances, 
that  might  very  naturally  drive  any  other  than  a  most 
resolute  minister  from  his  measure  or  from  his  sta- 
tion. The  household  troops  openly  revolted.  The 
allies  of  ministry  (those,  I  mean,  who  supported  some 
of  their  measures,  but  refused  responsibility  for  any) 
endeavored  to  undermine  their  credit,  and  to  take 
ground  that  must  be  fatal  to  the  success  of  the  very 
cause  which  they  would  be  thought  to  countenance. 
The  question  of  the  repeal  was  brought  on  by  minis- 
try in  the  committee  of  this  House  in  the  very  in- 
stant when  it  was  known  that  more  than  one  court 
negotiation  was  carrying  on  with  the  heads  of  the 
opposition.  Everything,  upon  every  side,  was  full  of 
traps  and  mines.  Earth  below  shook  ;  heaven  above 
menaced  ;  all  the  elements  of  ministerial  safety  were 
dissolved.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  chaos  of  plots 
and  counterplots,  it  was  in  the  midst  of  this  compli- 
cated warfare  against  public  opposition  and  private 
treachery,  that  the  firmness  of  that  noble  person  was 
put  to  the  proof.  He  never  stirred  from  his  groiuid  : 
no,  not  an  inch.  He  remained  fixed  and  determined, 
in  principle,  in  measure,  and  in  conduct.  He  prac- 
tised no  managements.  He  secured  no  retreat.  He 
sought  no  apology. 

I  will  likewise  do  justice — I  ought  to  do  it — to  the 
honorable  gentleman  who  led  us  in  this  House.*  Far 
from  the  duplicity  wickedly  charged  on  liim,  ho  acted 
his  part  with  alacrity  and  resolution.     We  all  felt  in- 

*  General  Conway. 


62  SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

spired  by  the  example  he  gave  us,  down  even  to  my- 
self, the  weakest  in  that  phalanx.  I  declare  for  one, 
I  knew  well  enough  (it  could  not  he  concealed  from 
anybody)  the  true  state  of  things  ;  but,  in  my  life,  I 
never  came  with  so  much  spirits  into  this  House.  It 
was  a  time  for  a  man  to  act  in.  We  had  powerful 
enemies  ;  but  we  had  faithful  and  determined  friends, 
and  a  glorious  cause.  We  had  a  great  battle  to  fight ; 
but  we  had  the  means  of  fighting :  not  as  now,  when 
our  arms  are  tied  behind  us.  We  did  figlit  that  day, 
and  conquer. 

I  remember.  Sir,  with  a  melancholy  pleasure,  the 
situation  of  the  honorable  gentleman  *  who  made  the 
motion  for  the  repeal :  in  that  crisis,  when  the  whole 
trading  interest  of  this  emj^ire,  crammed  into  your 
lobbies,  with  a  trembling  and  anxious  expectation, 
waited,  almost  to  a  winter's  return  of  light,  their  fate 
from  your  resolutions.  When  at  length  you  had  de- 
termined in  their  favor,  and  your  doors  thrown  open 
showed  them  the  figure  of  their  deliverer  in  the  well- 
earned  triumph  of  his  important  victory,  from  the 
whole  of  that  grave  multitude  there  arose  an  involun- 
tary burst  of  gratitude  and  transport.  They  jumped 
upon  him  like  children  on  a  long  absent  father. 
They  clung  about  him  as  captives  about  their  re- 
deemer. All  England,  all  America,  joined  in  his  ap- 
plause. Nor  did  he  seem  insensible  to  the  best  of  all 
earthly  rewards,  the  love  and  admiration  of  his  fel- 
low-citizens. IIo2Je  elevated  and  joy  hrighteiied  his 
crest.  I  stood  near  him  ;  and  his  face,  to  use  the  ex- 
pression of  the  Scripture  of  the  first  martyr,  "  his  face 
was  as  if  it  had  been  the  face  of  an  angel."  I  do  not 
know  how  others  feel ;  but  if  I  had  stood  in  that  sit- 

*  General  Conway. 


SPEECH    0\    AMERICAN   TAXATION.  53 

nation,  I  never  -svonld  have  exchanged  it  for  all  that 
kings  in  their  profusion  could  bestow.  I  did  hope 
that  that  day's  danger  and  honor  would  have  been  a 
bond  to  hold  us  all  together  forever.  But,  alas ! 
that,  with  other  pleasing  visions,  is  long  since  van- 
ished. 

Sir,  this  act  of  supreme  magnanimity  has  been 
represented  as  if  it  had  been  a  measure  of  an  admin- 
istration that,  having  no  scheme  of  their  own,  took  a 
middle  line,  pilfered  a  bit  from  one  side  and  a  bit 
from  the  other.  Sir,  they  took  no  middle  lines. 
They  differed  fundamentally  from  the  schemes  of 
both  parties  ;  but  they  preserved  the  objects  of  both. 
They  preserved  the  autliority  of  Great  Britain ; 
they  preserved  the  equity  of  Great  Britain.  They 
made  the  Declaratory  Act ;  they  repealed  the  Stamp 
Act.  They  did  both  fully  :  because  the  Declaratory 
Act  was  without  qualification ;  and  the  repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act  total.  This  they  did  in  the  situation  I 
have  described. 

Now,  Sh-,  'what  will  the  adversary  say  to  both  these 
acts  ?  If  the  principle  of  the  Declaratory  Act  was 
not  good,  the  principle  we  are  contending  for  this 
day  is  monstrous.  If  the  principle  of  the  repeal  was 
not  good,  why  are  we  not  at  war  for  a  real,  substan- 
tial, effective  revenue  ?  If  both  were  bad,  why  has 
this  ministry  incurred  all  the  inconveniences  of  both 
and  of  all  schemes  ?  why  have  they  enacted,  re- 
pealed, enforced,  yielded,  and  now  attempt  to  enforce 
again  ? 

Sir,  I  think  I  may  as  well  now  as  at  any  other 
time  speak  to  a  certain  matter  of  fact  not  wholly 
unrelated  to  the  question  under  your  consideration. 
We,  who  would  persuade  you  to  revcit  to  the  ancient 


54  SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

policy  of  this  kingdom,  la^bor  under  the  effect  of  this 
short  current  phrase,  which  the  court  leaders  have 
given  out  to  all  their  corps,  in  order  to  take  away  the 
credit  of  those  who  would  prevent  you  from  that 
frantic  war  you  are  going  to  wage  upon  your  colo- 
nies. Their  cant  is  this :  "  All  the  disturbances  in 
America  have  been  created  by  the  repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act."  I  suppress  for  a  moment  my  indigna- 
tion at  the  falsehood,  baseness,  and  absurdity  of  this 
most  audacious  assertion.  Instead  of  remarking  on 
the  motives  and  character  of  those  who  have  issued  it 
for  circulation,  I  will  clearly  lay  before  you  the  state 
of  America,  antecedently  to  that  repeal,  after  the 
repeal,  and  since  the  renewal  of  the  schemes  of 
American  taxation. 

It  is  said,  that  the  disturbances,  if  there  were  any 
before  the  repeal,  were  slight,  and  without  difficul- 
ty or  inconvenience  might  have  been  suppressed. 
For  an  answer  to  this  assertion  I  will  send  you  to  the 
great  author  and  patron  of  the  Stamp  Act,  who,  cer- 
tainly meaning  well  to  the  authority  of  this  country, 
and  fully  apprised  of  the  state  of  that,  made,  before  a 
repeal  was  so  much  as  agitated  in  this  House,  the 
motion  which  is  on  your  journals,  and  which,  to 
save  the  clerk  the  trouble  of  turning  to  it,  I  will  now 
read  to  you.  It  was  for  an  amendment  to  the  ad- 
dress of  the  17th  of  December,  1765. 

"  To  express  our  just  resentment  and  indignation 
at  the  outrageous  tumults  and  insurrections  wliich  have 
been  excited  and  carried  on  in  North  America,  and  at 
the  resistance  given,  by  oijen  and  rebellious  force,  to 
the  execution  of  the  laws  in  that  part  of  his  Majesty's 
dominions ;  to  assure  his  Majesty,  that  his  faithful 
Commons,  animated  with  the  warmest  duty  and  at- 


SPEECH    ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  55 

taclimciit  to  his  royal  person  and  government,  .... 
will  firmly  and  effectually  support  his  Majesty  in  all 
such  measures  as  shall  be  necessary  for  preserving 
and  securing  the  legal  dependence  of  the  colonies 
upon  this  their  mother  country,"  &c.,  &c. 

Here  was  certainly  a  disturbance  preceding  the 
repeal,  —  such  a  disturbance  as  Mr.  Grenville  thought 
necessary  to  qualify  by  the  name  of  an  insurrection, 
and  the  epithet  of  a  reheUious  force :  terms  much 
stronger  than  any  by  which  those  who  then  support- 
ed his  motion  have  ever  since  thouglit  proper  to 
distinguish  the  subsequent  disturbances  in  America. 
They  were  disturbances  wliich  seemed  to  him  and 
his  friends  to  justify  as  strong  a  promise  of  sup- 
port as  hatli  been  usual  to  give  in  the  beginning 
of  a  war  with  the  most  powerful  and  declared  ene 
mies.  When  the  accounts  of  the  American  govern- 
ors came  before  the  House,  they  appeared  stronger 
even  than  tlie  warmth  of  puljlic  imagination  had 
painted  them :  so  much  stronger,  that  the  papers  on 
your  table  bear  me  out  in  saying  that  all  the  late 
disturbances,  which  have  been  at  one  time  the  minis- 
ter's motives  for  the  repeal  of  five  out  of  six  of  the 
new  court  taxes,  and  are  now  his  pretences  for  refus- 
ing to  repeal  that  sixth,  did  not  amount  —  why  do  I 
compare  them  ?  —  no,  not  to  a  tenth  part  of  the  tu- 
mults and  violence  which  prevailed  long  before  the 
repeal  of  that  act. 

Ministry  cannot  refuse  the  authority  of  the  com- 
mander-in-chief. General  Gage,  who,  in  his  letter  of 
the  4th  of  November,  from  New  York,  thus  repre- 
sents the  state  of  thincjs  :  — 

"  It  is  difficult  to  say,  fi-om  the  highest  to  the  loivest, 
who  has  not  been  accessory  to  this  insurrection,  either 


56  SPEECH    ON   AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

by  writing,  or  mutual  agreements  to  oppose  tlie  act,  by 
what  they  are  pleased  to  term  all  legal  opposition  to  it. 
Nothing  effectual  has  been  proposed,  either  to  prevent 
or  quell  the  tumult.  The  rest  of  the  jjrovinces  are  in 
the  same  situation,  as  to  a  positive  refusal  to  take  the 
stamps,  and  threatening  those  who  shall  take  them  to 
plunder  and  murder  them.;  and  this  affair  stands  in 
all  the  provi7ices,  that,  unless  the  act  from  its  own  na- 
ture enforce  itself,  nothing  but  a  ver^  considerable 
military  force  can  do  it." 

It  is  remarkable.  Sir,  that  the  persons  who  formerly 
trumpeted  forth  the  most  loudly  the  violent  resolu- 
tions of  assemblies,  the  universal  insurrections,  the 
seizing  and  burning  the  stamped  papers,  the  forcing 
stamp  officers  to  resign  their  commissions  under  the 
gallows,  the  rifling  and  pulling  down  of  the  houses 
of  magistrates,  and  the  expulsion  from  their  country 
of  all  who  dared  to  write  or  speak  a  single  word  in 
defence  of  the  powers  of  Parliament,  —  these  very 
trumpeters  are  now  the  men  that  represent  the  whole 
as  a  mere  trifle,  and  choose  to  date  all  the  disturb- 
ances from  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  which  put 
an  end  to  them.     Hear  your  officers  abroad,  and  let 
them  refute  this  shameless  falsehood,  who,  in  all  their 
correspondence,  state  the  disturbances  as  owhig  to 
their  true  causes,  the  discontent  of  the  people  from 
the  taxes.     You  have  this  evidence  in  your  own  ar- 
chives ;  and  it  will  give  you  complete  satisfaction,  if 
you  are  not  so  far  lost  to  all  Parliamentary  ideas  of 
information    as  rather  to  credit  the  lie  of  the  day 
than  the  records  of  your  own  House. 

Sir,  this  vermin  of  court  reporters,  when  they  are 
forced  into  day  upon  one  point,  are  sure  to  burrow  in 
another  :  but  they  shall  have  no  refuge  ;  I  will  make 


SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION.  57 

tliem  bolt  out  of  all  their  holes.  Conscious  that  they 
must  be  baffled,  when  they  attribute  a  precedent  dis- 
turbance to  a  subsequent  measure,  they  take  other 
ground,  almost  as  absurd,  but  very  common  in  mod- 
ern practice,  and  very  wicked  ;  which  is,  to  attribute 
the  ill  effect  of  ill-judged  conduct  to  the  arguments 
which  had  been  used  to  dissuade  us  from  it.  They 
say,  that  the  opposition  made  in  Parliament  to  the 
Stamp  Act,  at  the  time  of  its  passing,  encouraged  the 
Americans  to  their  resistance.  This  has  even  for- 
mally appeared  in  print  in  a  regular  volume  from  an 
advocate  of  that  faction,  —  a  Dr.  Tucker.  This  Dr. 
Tucker  is  already  a  dean,  and  his  earnest  labors  in 
this  vineyard  will,  I  suppose,  raise  him  to  a  bishop- 
ric. But  this  assertion,  too  Just  like  the  rest,  is  false. 
Li  all  the  papers  which  have  loaded  your  table,  in 
all  the  vast  crowd  of  verbal  witnesses  that  appeared  at 
your  bar,  witnesses  which  were  indiscriminately  pro- 
duced from  both  sides  of  the  House,  not  the  least 
hint  of  such  a  cause  of  disturbance  has  ever  appeared. 
As  to  the  fact  of  a  strenuous  opposition  to  the  Stamp 
Act,  I  sat  as  a  stranger  in  your  gallery  when  the  act 
was  under  consideration.  Far  from  anything  inflam- 
matory, I  never  heard  a-more  languid  debate  in  this 
House.  No  more  than  two  or  three  gentlemen,  as  I 
remember,  spoke  against  the  act,  and  that  with  great 
reserve  and  remarkable  temper.  There  was  but  one 
division  in  the  whole  progress  of  the  bill ;  and  the 
minority  did  not  reach  to  more  than  39  or  40.  In 
the  House  of  Lords  I  do  not  recollect  that  there  was 
any  debate  or  division  at  all.  I  am  svire  there  was 
no  protest.  In  fiict,  the  affair  passed  with  so  very, 
very  little  noise,  tliat  in  town  they  scarcely  knew  the 
nature  of  Avhat  you  were  doing.     The  opposition  to 


58  SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

the  bill  in  England  never  could  have  done  this  mis 
chief,  because  there  scarcely  ever  was  less  of  opposi- 
tion to  a  bill  of  consequence. 

Sir,  the  agents  and  distributors  of  falsehoods  have, 
with  their  usual  industry,  circulated  another  lie,  of 
the  same  nature  with  the  former.  It  is  this  :  that  the 
disturbances  arose  from  "the  account  which  had  been 
received  in  America  of  the  change  in  the  ministry. 
No  longer  awed,  it  seems,  with  the  spirit  of  the  former 
rulers,  they  thought  themselves  a  match  for  what  our 
calumniators  choose  to  qualify  by  the  name  of  so 
feeble  a  ministry -as  succeeded.  Feeble  in  one  sense 
these  men  certainly  may  be  called  :  for,  with  all  their 
efforts,  and  they  have  made  many,  they  have  not  been 
able  to  resist  the  distempered  vigor  and  insane  alac- 
rity with  which  you  are  rushing  to  your  ruin.  But 
it  does  so  happen,  that  the  falsity  of  this  circulation 
is  (like  the  rest)  demonstrated  by  indisputable  dates 
and  records. 

So  little  was  the  change  known  m  America,  that 
the  letters  of  your  governors,  giving  an  account  of 
these  disturbances  long  after  they  had  arrived  at 
their  highest  pitch,  were  all  directed  to  the  old  min- 
istry, and  particularly  to  the  Earl  of  Halifax,  the 
Secretary  of  State  corresponding  with  the  colonies, 
without  once  in  the  smallest  degree  intimating  the 
slightest  suspicion  of  any  ministerial  revolution  what- 
soever. The  ministry  was  not  changed  in  England 
until  the  10th  day  of  July,  17G5.  On  the  14th  of  the 
preceding  June,  Governor  Fauquier,  from  Virginia, 
writes  thus,  —  and  writes  thus  to  the  Earl  of  Halifax  : 
—  "  Government  is  set  at  defiance,  not  having  strength 
enough  m  her  hands  to  enforce  obedience  to  the  laws 
of  the  community.  —  The  private  distress,  which  every 


SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  59 

man  feels,  increases  the  general  dissatisfaction  at  the 
duties  laid  by  the  Stamp  Act,  which  breaks  out  and 
shows  itself  upon  every  trifling  occasion."  The  gen- 
eral dissatisfaction  had  produced  some  time  before, 
that  is,  on  the  29th  of  May,  several  strong  public  re- 
solves against  the  Stamp  Act ;  and  those  resolves  are 
assigned  by  Governor  Bernard  as  the  cause  of  the  ivir 
surrections  in  Massachusetts  Bay,  in  his  letter  of  the 
15th  of  August,  still  addressed  to  the  Earl  of  Halifax  ; 
and  he  continued  to  address  such  accounts  to  that  min- 
ister quite  to  the  7th  of  September  of  the  same  year. 
Similar  accounts,  and  of  as  late  a  date,  were  sent  from 
other  governors,  and  all  directed  to  Lord  Halifax. 
Not  one  of  these  letters  indicates  the  slightest  idea  of 
a  change,  either  known  or  even  apprehended. 

Thus  are  blown  away  the  insect  race  of  courtly 
falsehoods  !  Thus  perish  the  miserable  inventions 
of  the  wretched  runners  for  a  wretched  cause,  which 
they  have  fly-blown  into  every  weak  and  rotten  part 
of  the  country,  in  vain  hopes,  that,  when  their  njag- 
gots  had  taken  wing,  their  importunate  buzzing  might 
sound  something  like  the  public  voice  ! 

Sir,  I  have  troubled  you  sufficiently  with  the  state 
of  America  before  the  repeal.  Now  I  turn  to  the 
honorable  gentleman  who  so  stoutly  challenges  iis 
to  tell  whether,  after  the  repeal,  the  provinces  were 
quiet.  This  is  coming  home  to  the  point.  Here  I 
meet  him  directly,  and  answer  most  readily.  They 
were  quiet.  And  I,  in  my  turn,  challenge  him  to 
prove  when,  and  where,  and  by  whom,  and  in  what 
numbers,  and  with  what  violence,  the  other  laws  of 
trade,  as  gentlemen  assert,  were  violated  in  conse- 
quence of  your  concession,  or  that  even  your  other 
revenue  laws  were  attacked.    But  I  quit  the  vantage- 


00  SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

gTouud  on  "which  I  stand,  and  where  I  might  leave 
the  burden  of  the  proof  upon  him :  I  walk  down  upon 
the  open  plain,  and  undertake  to  show  that  they  were 
not  only  quiet,  but  showed  many  unequivocal  marks 
of  acknowledgment  and  gratitude.  And  to  give  him 
every  advantage,  I  select  the  obnoxious  colony  of 
Massachusetts  Bay,  which  at  this  time  (but  without 
hearing  her)  is  so  heavily  a  culprit  before  Parlia- 
ment :  I  will  select  their  proceedings  even  under 
circumstances  of  no  small  irritation.  For,  a  little 
imprudently,  I  must  say,  Governor  Bernard  mixed 
in  the  administration  of  the  lenitive  of  the  repeal 
no  small  acrimony  arising  from  matters  of  a  sepa- 
rate nature.  Yet  see.  Sir,  the  effect  of  that  lenitive, 
though  mixed  with  these  bitter  ingredients,  —  and 
how  this  rugged  people  can  express  themselves  on  a 
measure  of  concession, 

"  If  it  is  not  now  in  our  power,"  (say  they,  in  their 
address  to  Governor  Bernard,)  "  in  so  full  a  manner 
as  will  be  expected,  to  show  our  respectful  gratitude 
to  the  mother  country,  or  to  make  a,  dutiful,  affec- 
tionate return  to  the  indulgence  of  the  King  and 
Parliament,  it  shall  be  no  fault  of  ours ;  for  this  we 
intend,  and  hope  shall  be  able  fully  to  effect." 

Would  to  God  that  this  temper  had  been  cultivat- 
ed, managed,  and  set  in  action !  Other  effects  than 
those  which  we  have  since  felt  would  have  resulted 
from  it.  On  the  requisition  for  compensation  to  those 
who  had  suffered  from  the  violence  of  the  populace,  in 
the  same  address  they  say,  —  "  The  recommendation 
enjoined  by  Mr.  Secretary  Conway's  letter,  and  in  con- 
sequence thereof  made  to  us,  we  shall  embrace  the 
first  convenient  opportunity  to  consider  and  act  upon." 
They  did  consider ;  they  did  act  upon  it.    They  obeyed 


SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  61 

the  requisition.  I  know  the  mode  has  been  chicaned 
upon  ;  but  it  was  substantially  obeyed,  and  much  bet- 
ter obeyed  than  I  fear  the  Parliamentary  requisition  of 
this  session  will  be,  though  enforced  by  all  your  rig- 
or and  backed  with  all  your  power.  In  a  word,  the 
damages  of  popular  fury  were  compensated  by  legis- 
lative gravity.  Almost  every  other  part  of  America 
in  various  ways  demonstrated  their  gratitude.  I  am 
bold  to  say,  that  so  sudden  a  calm  recovered  after  so 
violent  a  storm  is  without  parallel  in  history.  To  say 
that  no  other  disturbance  should  happen  from  any 
other  cause  is  folly.  But  as  far  as  appearances  went, 
by  the  judicious  sacrifice  of  one  law  you  procured 
an  acquiescence  in  all  that  remained.  After  this  ex- 
perience, nobody  shall  persuade  me,  when  an  whole 
people  are  concerned,  that  acts  of  lenity  are  not 
means  of  conciliation. 

I  hope  the  honorable  gentleman  has  received  a  fair 
and  full  answer  to  his  question. 

I  have  done  with  the  third  period  of  your  policy, — 
that  of  your  repeal,  and  the  return  of  your  ancient 
system,  and  your  ancient  tranquillity  and  concord. 
Sir,  this  period  was  not  as  long  as  it  was  happy.  An- 
other scene  was  opened,  and  other  actors  appeared 
on  the  stage.  The  state,  in  the  condition  I  have  de- 
scribed it,  was  delivered  into  the  hands  of  Lord  Chat- 
ham, a  great  and  celebrated  name,  —  a  name  that 
keeps  the  name  of  this  country  respectable  in  every 
other  on  the  globe.     It  may  be  truly  called 

Clarum  et  venerabile  nomen 
Gentibus,  et  multum  nostra  quod  proderat  urbi. 

Sir,  the  venerable  age  of  this  great  man,  his  mer- 
ited rank,  his  superior  eloquence,  his  splendid  quali- 


62  SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

ties,  his  eminent  services,  the  vast  space  ho  fills  in 
the  eye  of  mankind,  and,  more  than  all  the  rest,  his 
fall  from  power,  which,  like  death,  canonizes  and  sane 
tifies  a  great  character,  will  not  suffer  me  to  censure 
any  part  of  his  conduct.  I  am  afraid  to  flatter  him  ; 
I  am  sure  I  am  not  disposed  to  blame  him.  Let  those 
who  have  betrayed  him  by  their  adulation  insult  him 
with  their  malevolence.  But  what  I  do  not  presume 
to  censure  I  may  have  leave  to  lament.  For  a  wise 
man,  he  seemed  to  me  at  that  time  to  be  governed 
too  much  by  general  maxims.  I  speak  with  the  free- 
dom of  history,  and  I  hope  without  offence.  One  or 
two  of  these  maxims,  flowing  from  an  opinion  not 
the  most  indulgent  to  our  unhappy  species,  and  sure- 
ly a  little  too  general,  led  him  into  measures  that 
were  greatly  mischievous  to  himself,  and  for  that  rea- 
son, among  others,  perhaps  fatal  to  his  country, — 
measures,  the  effects  of  which,  I  am  afraid,  are  forev- 
er incurable.  He  made  an  administration  so  check- 
ered and  speckled,  he  put  together  a  piece  of  joinery 
so  crossly  indented  and  whimsically  dovetailed,  a  cab- 
inet so  variously  inlaid,  suph  a  piece  of  diversified 
mosaic,  such  a  tessellated  pavement  without  cement, 

—  here  a  bit  of  black  stone  and  there  a  bit  of  white, 
patriots  and  courtiers,  king's  friends  and  republicans, 
-Whigs  and  Tories,  treacherous  friends  and  open  ene- 
mies, —  that  it  was,  indeed,  a  very  curious  show,  but 
utterly  unsafe  to  touch  and  unsure  to  stand  on.  The 
colleagues  whom  he  had  assorted  at  the  same  boards 
stared  at. each  other,  and  were  obliged  to  ask,  —  "  Sir, 
your  name  ?  "  — "  Sir,  you  have  the  advantage  of  me." 

—  "  Mr.  Such-a-one."  —  "I  beg  a  thousand  pardons." 

—  I  venture  to  say,  it  did  so  happen  that  persons 
had  a  single  office  divided  between  them,  who  had 


SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  63 

never  spoke  to  each  other  in  their  lives,  until  they 
found  themselves,  they  knew  not  how,  pigging  to- 
gether, heads  and  points,  in  the  same  truckle-bed.* 

Sir,  in  consequence  of  this  arrangement,  having 
put  so  much  the  larger  part  of  his  enemies  and  oppos- 
ers  into  power,  the  confusion  was  such  that  his  own 
principles  could  not  possilily  have  any  effect  or  influ- 
ence in  the  conduct  of  affairs.  If  ever  he  fell  into  a 
fit  of  the  gout,  or  if  any  other  cause  withdrew  him 
from  public  cares,  principles  directly  the  contrary 
were  sure  to  predominate.  When  he  had  executed 
his  plan,  he  had  not  an  inch  of  ground  to  stand  upon. 
When  he  had  accomplished  his  scheme  of  administra- 
tion, he  was  no  longer  a  minister. 

When  his  face  was  hid  but  for  a  moment,  his  whole 
system  was  on  a  wide  sea  without  chart  or  compass. 
The  gentlemen,  his  particular  friends,  who,  with  the 
names  of  various  departments  of  ministry,  were  ad- 
mitted to  seem  as  if  they  acted  a  part  under  him, 
with  a  modesty  that  becomes  all  men,  and  with  a  con- 
fidence in  him  which  was  justified  even  in  its  extrav- 
agance by  his  superior  abilities,  had  never  in  any 
instance  presumed  upon  any  opinion  of  their  own. 
Deprived  of  his  guiding  inflnence,  they  were  whirled 
about,  the  sport  of  every  gust,  and  easily  driven  into 
any  port ;  and  as  those  who  joined  with  them  in  man- 
ning the  vessel  were  the  most  directly  opposite  to  his 
opinions,  measures,  and  character,  and  far  the  most 
artful  and  most  powerful  of  the  set,  they  easily  pre- 
vailed, so  as  to  seize  upon  the  vacant,  unoccxipied, 
and  derelict  minds  of  his  friends,  and  instantly  tlicy 

*  Supposed  to  allude  to  the  Eight  Honorable  Lord  North,  and 
George  Cooke,  Esq.,  who  were  made  joint  paymasters  in  the  summer 
of  1766,  on  the  removal  of  the  Rockingham  administration. 


64  SPEECH   ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

turned  the  vessel  wholly  out  of  the  course  of  his  pol 
icy.  As  if  it  were  to  insult  as  well  as  to  betray  him, 
even  long  before  the  close  of  the  first  session  of  his 
administration,  when  everything  was  publicly  trans- 
acted, and  with  great  parade,  in  his  name,  they  made 
an  act  declaring  it  highly  just  and  expedient  to  raise 
a  revenue  in  America.  For  even  then.  Sir,  even  be- 
fore this  splendid  orb  was  entirely  set,  and  while  the 
western  horizon  was  in  a  blaze  with  his  descending 
glory,  on  the  opposite  quarter  of  the  heavens  arose 
another  luminary,  and  for  his  hour  became  lord  of 
the  ascendant. 

This  light,  too,  is  passed  and  set  forever.  You  un- 
derstand, to  be  sure,  that  I  speak  of  Charles  Towns- 
hend,  officially  the  reproducer  of  this  fatal  scheme, 
whom  I  cannot  even  now  remember  without  some  de- 
gree of  sensibility.  In  truth,  Sir,  he  was  the  delight 
and  ornament  of  this  House,  and  the  charm  of  every 
private  society  which  he  honored  with  his  presence. 
Perhaps  there  never  arose  in  this  country,  nor  in  any 
country,  a  man  of  a  more  pointed  and  finished  wit, 
and  (where  his  passions  were  not  concerned)  of  a 
more  refined,  exquisite,  and  penetrating  judgment. 
If  he  had  not  so  great  a  stock  as  some  have  had,  who 
flourished  formerly,  of  knowledge  long  treasured  up, 
he  knew,  better  by  far  than  any  man  I  ever  was  ac- 
quainted with,  how  to  bi-ing  together  within  a  short 
time  all  that  was  necessary  to  establish,  to  illustrate, 
and  to  decorate  that  side  of  the  question  he  "supported. 
He  stated  his  matter  skilfully  and  powerfully.  He 
particularly  excelled  in  a  most  luminous  explanation 
and  display  of  his  subject.  His  style  of  argument 
was  neither  trite  and  vulgar,  nor  subtle  and  abstruse. 
He  hit  the  House  just  between  wind  and  water.    And 


SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN   TAXATION.  65 

not  being  troubled  "vdth  too  anxious  a  zeal  for  any 
matter  in  question,  lie  was  never  more  tedious  or 
more  earnest  than  the  preconceived  opinions  and  pres- 
ent temper  of  his  hearers  required,  to  whom  he  was 
always  in  perfect  unison.  He  conformed  exactly  to 
the  temper  of  the  House ;  and  he  seemed  to  guide, 
because  he  was  always  sure  to  follow  it. 

I  beg  pardon,  Sir,  if,  when  I  speak  of  this  and  of 
other  great  men,  I  appear  to  digress  in  saying  some- 
thing of  their  characters.  In  this  eventful  history  of 
the  revolutions  of  America,  the  characters  of  such 
men  are  of  much  importance.  Great  men  are  the 
guideposts  and  landmarks  in  the  state.  The  credit 
of  such  men  at  court  or  in  the  nation  is  the  sole 
cause  of  all  the  public  measures.  It  would  be  an  in- 
vidious thing  (most  foreign,  I  trust,  to  what  you  think 
my  disposition)  to  remark  the  errors  into  which  the 
authority  of  great  names  has  brought  the  nation,  with- 
out doing  justice  at  the  same  time  to  the  great  quali- 
ties whence  that  authority  arose.  The  subject  is 
instructive  to  those  who  wish  to  form  themselves  on 
whatever  of  excellence  has  gone  before  them.  There 
are  many  young  members  in  the  House  (such  of  late 
has  been  the  rapid  succession  of  public  men)  who 
never  saw  that  prodigy,  Charles  Townshend,  nor  of 
course  know  what  a  ferment  he  was  able  to  excite  in 
everything  by  the  violent  ebullition  of  his  mixed  vir 
tucs  and  failings.  For  failings  he  had  undoubtedly, 
—  many,  of  us  remember  them  ;  we  are  this  day  con- 
sidering the  effect  of  them.  But  he  had  no  failings 
which  were  not  owing  to  a  noble  cause, — to  an  ardent, 
generous,  perhaps  an  immoderate  passion  for  fame : 
a  passion  which  is  the  instinct  of  all  great  souls.  He 
worshipped  that  goddess,  wheresoever  she  appeared  ; 

VOL.  II.  5 


66  SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

but  he  paid  his  particular  devotions  to  her  in  her  fa- 
vorite habitation,  in  her  chosen  temple,  the  House  of 
Commons.  Besides  the  characters  of  the  individuals 
that  compose  our  body,  it  is  impossible,  Mr.  Speaker, 
not  to  observe  that  this  House  has  a  collective  char- 
acter of  its  own.  That  character,  too,  however  imper- 
fect, is  not  unamiable.  Like  all  great  public  collec- 
tions of  men,  you  possess  a  marked  love  of  virtue 
and  an  abhorrence  of  vice.  But  among  vices  there 
is  none  which  the  House  abhors  in  the  same  degree 
with  ohstinacy.  Obstinacy,  Sir,  is  certainly  a  great 
vice ;  and  in  the  changeful  state  of  political  affairs  it 
is  frequently  the  cause  of  gi-eat  mischief.  It  happens, 
however,  very  unfortunately,  that  almost  the  whole 
line  of  the  great  and  masculine  virtues,  constancy, 
gravity,  magnanimity,  fortitude,  fidelity,  and  firmness, 
are  closely  allied  to  this  disagreeable  quality,  of  which 
you  have  so  just  an  abhorrence  ;  and,  in  their  excess, 
all  these  virtues  very  easily  fall  into  it.  He  who 
paid  such  a  punctilious  attention  to  all  your  feelings 
certainly  took  care  not  to  shock  them  by  that  vice 
which  is  the  most  disgustful  to  you. 

That  fear  of  displeasing  those  who  ought  most  to 
be  pleased  betrayed  him  sometimes  into  the  other  ex- 
treme. He  had  voted,  and,  in  the  year  1765,  had 
been  an  advocate  for  the  Stamp  Act.  Things  and 
the  disposition  of  men's  minds  were  changed.  In 
short,  the  Stamp  Act  began  to  be  no  favorite  in  this 
House.  He  therefore  attended  at  the  private  meet- 
ing in  which  the  resolutions  moved  by  a  right  honor- 
able gentleman  were  settled  :  resolutions  leading  to 
the  repeal.  The  next  day  he  voted  for  that  repeal ; 
and  he  would  have  spoken  for  it,  too,  if  an  illness 
(not,  as  was  then  given  out,  a  political,  but,  to  my 


SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION.  67 

knowledge,  a  very  real  illness)  had  not  prevented 
It. 

The  very  next  session,  as  the  fashion  of  this  world 
passeth  away,  the  repeal  began  to  be  in  as  bad  an 
odor  in  this  House  as  the  Stamp  Act  had  been  in  the 
session  before.  To  conform  to  the  temper  which 
began  to  prevail,  and  to  prevail  mostly  amongst  those 
most  in  power,  he  declared,  very  early  in  the  winter, 
that  a  revenue  must  be  had  out  of  America.  In- 
stantly he  was  tied  down  to  his  engagements  by 
some,  who  had  no  objection  to  such  experiments, 
when  made  at  the  cost  of  persons  for  whom  they  had 
no  particular  regard.  The  whole  body  of  courtiers 
drove  him  onward.  They  always  talked  as  if  the  king 
stood  in  a  sort  of  humiliated  state,  until  something 
of  the  kind  should  be  done. 

Here  this  extraordinary  man,  then  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer,  found  himself  in  great  straits.  To 
please  universally  was  the  o])ject  of  his  life  ;  but  to 
tax  and  to  please,  no  more  than  to  love  and  to  be  wise, 
is  not  given  to  men.  However,  he  attempted  it.  To 
render  the  tax  palatable  to  the  partisans  of  American 
revenue,  he  made  a  preamble  stating  the  necessity 
of  such  a  revenue.  To  close  with  the  American  dis- 
tinction, this  revenue  was  external  or  port-duty  ;  but 
again,  to  soften  it  to  the  other  party,  it  was  a  duty  of 
suiyply.  To  gratify  the  colonists,  it  was  laid  on  Brit- 
ish manufactures  ;  to  satisfy  tlie  merchants  of  Britain., 
the  duty  was  trivial,  and  (except  that  on  tea,  which 
touched  only  the  devoted  East  India  Company)  on 
none  of  tlie  grand  objects  of  commerce.  To  counter- 
work the  American  contraband,  the  duty  on  tea  was 
reduced  from  a  shilling  to  three-pence  ;  but  to  se- 
cure the  favor  of  tbose  who  would  tax  America,  the 


68  SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

scene  of  collection  was  changed,  and,  with  the  rest,  it 
was  levied  in  the  colonies.  What  need  I  say  more  ? 
This  fine-spun  scheme  had  the  usual  fate  of  all  exqui- 
site policy.  But  the  original  plan  of  the  duties,  and 
the  mode  of  executing  that  plan,  both  arose  singly 
and  solely  from  a  love  of  our  applause.  He  was 
truly  the  child  of  the  House.  He  never  thought, 
did,  or  said  anything,  but  with  a  view  to  you.  He 
every  day  adapted  himself  to  your  disposition,  and 
adjusted  himself  before  it  as  at  a  looking-glass. 

He  had  observed  (indeed,  it  could  not  escape  him) 
that  several  persons,  infinitely  his  inferiors  in  all  re- 
spects, liad  formerly  rendered  themselves  considera- 
ble in  this  House  by  one  method  alone.  They  were 
a  race  of  men  (I  hope  in  God  the  species  is  extinct) 
who,  when  they  rose  in  their  place,  no  man  living 
could  divine,  from  any  known  adherence  to  parties, 
to  opinions,  or  to  principles,  from  any  order  or  sys- 
tem in  their  politics,  or  from  any  sequel  or  connec- 
tion in  their  ideas,  what  part  they  were  going  to  take 
in  any  debate.  It  is  astonishing  how  much  this 
uncertainty,  especially  at  critical  times,  called  the 
attention  of  all  parties  on  such  men.  All  eyes  were 
fixed  on  them,  all  ears  open  to  hear  them ;  each  par- 
ty gaped,  and  looked  alternately  for  their  vote,  almost 
to  the  end  of  their  speeches.  While  the  House  hung 
in  this  imcertainty,  now  the  hear-hims  rose  from  this 
side,  now  they  rebellowed  from  the  other ;  and  that 
party  to  whom  they  fell  at  length  from  their  tremu- 
lous and  dancing  balance  always  received  them  in 
a  tempest  of  applause.  The  fortune  of  such  men  was 
a  temptation  too  great  to  be  resisted  by  one  to  whom 
a  single  whiff  of  incense  witliheld  gave  much  greater 
pain    than  he  received  delight   in  the  clouds  of   it 


SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION.  69 

whicli  daily  rose  about  him  from  the  prodigal  super- 
stition of  innumerable  admirers.  He  was  a  can- 
didate for  contradictory  honors ;  and  his  great  aim 
was,  to  make  those  agree  in  admiration  of  him  who 
never  agreed  in  anything  else. 

Hence  arose  this  unfortunate  act,  the  subject  of 
this  day's  debate  :  from  a  disposition  which,  after 
making  an  American  revenue  to  please  one,  repealed 
it  to  please  others,  and  again  revived  it  in  hopes  of 
pleasing  a  third,  and  of  catching  something  in  the 
ideas  of  all. 

This  revenue  act  of  1767  formed  the  fourth  period 
of  American  policy.  How  we  have  fared  since  then  : 
what  AYoful  variety  of  schemes  have  been  adopted  ; 
what  enforcing,  and  what  repeahng ;  what  bullying, 
and  what  submitting ;  what  doing,  and  undoing ; 
what  straining,  and  what  relaxing  ;  what  assemblies 
dissolved  for  not  obeying,  and  called  again  without 
obedience ;  what  troops  sent  out  to  quell  resistance, 
and,  on  meeting  that  resistance,  recalled  ;  what  shift- 
ings,  and  changes,  and  jumblings  of  all  kinds  of  men 
at  home,  which  left  no  possibility  of  order,  consisten- 
cy, vigor,  or  even  so  much  as  a  decent  unity  of  color, 
in  anyone  public  measure It  is  a  tedious,  irk- 
some task.  My  duty  may  call  me  to  open  it  out  some 
other  time  ;  on  a  former  occasion  *  I  tried  your  tem- 
per on  a  part  of  it ;  for  the  present  I  shall  forbear. 

After  all  these  changes  and  agitations,  your  imme- 
diate situation  upon  the  question  on  your  paper  is  at 
length  brought  to  this.  You  have  an  act  of  Parlia- 
ment stating  that  "  it  is  expedient  to  raise  a  revenue 
in  America.'-'  By  a  partial  repeal  you  annihilated 
the  greatest  part  of  that  revenue  which  this  preamble 

*  Resolutions  in  May,  1770. 


70  SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

declares  to  be  so  expedient.  You  have  substituted 
no  other  in  the  place  of  it.  A  Secretary  of  State  has 
disclaimed,  in  the  king's  name,  all  thoughts  of  such 
a  substitution  in  future.  The  principle  of  this  dis- 
claimer goes  to  what  has  been  left,  as  well  as  what 
has  been  repealed.  The  tax  which  lingers  after  its 
companions  (under  a  preamble  declaring  an  Ameri- 
can revenue  expedient,  and  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
supporting  the  theory  of  that  preamble)  militates  with 
the  assurance  authentically  conveyed  to  the  colonies, 
and  is  an  exhaustless  source  of  jealousy  and  animos- 
ity. On  this  state,  which  I  take  to  be  a  fai,r  one, — 
not  being  able  to  discern  any  grounds  of  honor,  ad- 
vantage, peace,  or  power,  for  adhering,  either  to  the 
act  or  to  the  pream].)le,  I  shall  vote  for  the  question 
which  leads  to  the  repeal  of  both. 

If  you  do  not  fall  in  with  this  motion,  then  secure 
something  to  fight  for,  consistent  in  theory  and  valu- 
able in  practice.  If  you  must  employ  your  strength, 
employ  it  to  uphold  you  in  some  honorable  right  or 
some  profitable  wrong.  If  you  are  apprehensive  that 
the  concession  recommended  to  you,  though  proper, 
should  be  a  means  of  drawing  on  you  further,  Init  un- 
reasonable claims,  —  why,  then  employ  your  force  in 
supporting  that  reasonable  concession  against  those 
unreasonable  demands.  You  will  employ  it  with 
more  grace,  with  better  effect,  and  with  great  prob- 
able concurrence  of  all  the  quiet  and  rational  people 
in  the  provinces,  wdio  are  now  united  with  and  hur- 
ried away  by  the  violent,  —  having,  indeed,  different 
dispositions,  but  a  common  interest.  If  you  appre- 
hend that  on  a  concession  you  shall  be  pushed  by 
metaphysical  process  to  the  extreme  lines,  and  ar- 
gued out  of  your  whole  authority,  my  advice  is  this : 


SPEECH    ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  71 

when  you  have  recovered  your  old,  your  strong,  your 
tenable  position,  then  face  about,  —  stop  short,  —  do 
nothing  more,  —  reason  not  at  all,  —  oppose  the  an- 
cient policy  and  practice  of  the  empire  as  a  rampart 
against  the  speculations  of  innovators  on  both  sides 
of  the  question,  —  and- you  will  stand  on  great,  manly, 
and  sure  ground.  On  this  solid  basis  fix  your  ma- 
chip-es,  and  they  will  draw  worlds  towards  you. 

Your  ministers,  in  their  own  and  his  Majesty's 
name,  have  already  adopted  the  American  distinction 
of  internal  and  external  duties.  It  is  a  distinction, 
whatever  merit  it  may  have,  that  was  originally 
moved  by  the  Americans  themselves ;  and  I  think 
they  will  acquiesce  in  it,  if  they  are  not  pushed  with 
too  much  logic  and  too  little  sense,  in  all  the  conse- 
quences :  that  is,  if  external  taxation  be  under- 
stood, as  they  and  you  understand  it,  when  you 
please,  to  be  not. a  distinction  of  geography,  but  of 
policy ;  that  it  is  a  power  for  regulating  trade,  and 
not  for  supporting  establishments.  The  distinction, 
which  is  as  nothing  with  regard  to  right,  is  of  most 
weighty  consideration  in  practice.  Recover  your  old 
ground,  and  your  old  tranquillity  ;  try  it ;  I  am 
persuaded  the  Americans  will  compromise  with  you. 
When  confidence  is  once  restored,  the  odious  and 
suspicious  summum  jus  will  perish  of  course.  The 
spirit  of  practicability,  of  moderation,  and  mutual 
convenience  will  never  call  in  geometrical  exactness 
as  the  arbitrator  of  an  amicable  settlement.  Consult 
and  follow  your  experience.  Let  not  the  long  story 
with  which  I  have  exercised  your  patience  prove 
fruitless  to  your  interests. 

For  my  part,  I  should  choose  (if  I  could  have  my 
wish)  that  the  proposition  of  the  honorable  gentle- 


72  SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION. 

man  *  for  the  repeal  could  go  to  America  without  the 
attendance  of  the  penal  bills.  Alone  I  could  almost 
answer  for  its  success.  I  cannot  be  certain  of  its  re- 
ception in  the  bad  company  it  may  keep.  In  such 
heterogeneous  assortments,  the  most  innocent  person 
will  lose  the  effect  of  his  innocency.  Though  you 
should  send  out  this  angel  of  peace,  yet  you  are  send- 
ing out  a  destroying  angel  too ;  and  what  would  be 
the  effect  of  the  conflict  of  these  two  adverse  spirits, 
or  which  would  predominate  in  the  end,  is  what  I 
dare  not  say:  whether  the  lenient  measures  would 
cause  American  passion  to  subside,  or  the  severe 
would  increase  its  fury,  —  all  this  is  in  the  hand  of 
Providence.  Yet  now,  even  now,  I  should  confide  in 
the  prevailing  virtue  and  efficacious  operation  of  len- 
ity, though  working  in  darkness  and  in  chaos,  in  the 
midst  of  all  this  unnatural  and  turbid  combination : 
I  should  hope  it  might  produce  order  and  beauty  in 
the  end. 

Let  us,  Sir,  embrace  some  system  or  other  before 
we  end  this  session.  Do  you  mean  to  tax  America, 
and  to  draw  a  productive  revenue  from  thence  ?  If 
you  do,  speak  out :  name,  fix,  ascertain  this  revenue  ; 
settle  its  quantity ;  define  its  ol^jects  ;  provide  for  its 
collection  ;  and  then  fight,  when  you  have  something 
to  fight  for.  If  you  murder,  rob ;  if  you  kill,  take 
possession  ;  and  do  not  appear  in  the  character  of  mad- 
men as  well  as  assassins,  violent,  vindictive,  bloody, 
and  tyrannical,  witliout  an  object.  But  may  better 
counsels  guide  you ! 

Again,  and  again,  revert  to  your  old  principles,  — ■ 
seek  peace  and  ensue  it,  —  leave  America,  if  she  has 
taxable  matter  in  her,  to  tax  herself.     I  am  not  here 

*  Mr.  Fuller. 


SPEECH    ON   AMERICAN    TAXATION.  73 

going  into  the  distinctions  of  rights,  nor  attempting 
to  mark  their  boundaries.  I  do  not  enter  into  these 
metaphysical  distinctions ;  I  hate  the  very  sound  of 
them.  Leave  the  Americans  as  they  anciently  stood, 
and  tliese  distinctions,  born  of  our  unhappy  contest, 
will  die  along  with  it.  They  and  we,  and  their  and 
our  ancestors,  have  been  happy  under  that  system. 
Let  the  memory  of  all  actions  in  contradiction  to  that 
good  old  mode,  on  both  sides,  be  extinguished  forever. 
Be  content  to  bind  America  by  .laws  of  trade :  you 
have  always  done  it.  Let  this  be  your  reason  for 
binding  their  trade.  Do  not  burden  them  by  taxes  : 
you  were  not  used  to  do  so  from  the  beginning.  Let 
this  be  your  reason  for  not  taxing.  These  are  the 
arguments  of  states  and  kingdoms.  Leave  the  rest  to 
the  schools  ;  for  there  only^they  may  be  discussed  with 
safety.  But  if,  intemperately,  unwisely,  fatally,  you 
sophisticate  and  poison  the  very  source  of  government, 
by  urging  subtle  deductions,  and  consequences  odi- 
ous to  those  you  govern,  from  the  unlimited  and 
illimitable  nature  of  supreme  sovereignty,  you  will 
teach  them  by  these  means  to  call  that  sovereignty 
itself  in  question.  When  you  drive  him  hard,  the 
boar  will  surely  turn  upon  the  hunters.  If  that 
sovereignty  and  their  freedom  cannot  be  reconciled, 
which  will  they  take  ?  They  will  cast  your  sover- 
eignty in  your  face.  Nobody  will  be  argued  into  sla- 
very. Sir,  let  the  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  call 
forth  all  their  ability ;  let  the  best  of  them  got  up 
and  tell  me  what  one  character  of  liberty  the  Amer- 
icans have,  and  what  one  brand  of  slavery  they  are 
free  from,  if  they  are  bound  in  their  property  and  in- 
dustry by  all  the  restraints  you  can  imagine  on  com- 
merce, and  at  the  same  time  are  made  pack-hoi'scs  of 


74  SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

every  tax  you  choose  to  impose,  without  the  least 
share  in  granting  them.  When  they  bear  the  bur- 
dens of  unlimited  monopoly,  will  you  bring  them  to 
bear  the  burdens  of  unlimited  revenue  too  ?  The 
Englishman  in  America  will  feel  that  this  is  slavery : 
that  it  is  legal  slavery  will  be  no  compensation  either 
to  his  feelings  or  his  understanding. 

A  noble  lord,*  who  spoke  some  time  ago,  is  full  of 
the  fire  of  ingenuous  youth ;  and  when  he  has  mod- 
elled the  ideas  of  a  lively  imagination  by  further  ex- 
perience, he  will  be  an  ornament  to  his  country  in 
either  House.  He  has  said  that  the  Americans  are 
our  children,  and  how  can  they  revolt  against  their 
parent  ?  He  says,  that,  if  they  are  not  free  in  their 
present  state,  England  is  not  free  ;  because  Manches- 
ter, and  other  considerable  places,  are  not  repre- 
sented. So,  then,  because  some  towns  in  England 
are  not  represented,  America  is  to  have  no  represen- 
tative at  all.  They  are  "  our  children  ";  but  when 
children  ask  for  bread,  we  are  not  to  give  a  stone.  Is 
it  because  the  natural  resistance  of  things,  and  the 
various  mutations  of  time,  hinders  our  government, 
or  any  scheme  of  government,  from  being  any  more 
than  a  sort  of  approximation  to  the  right,  is  it  there- 
fore that  the  colonies  are  to  recede  from  it  infinitely  ? 
When  this  child  of  ours  wishes  to  assimilate  to  its 
parent,  and  to  reflect  with  a  true  filial  resemblance  the 
beauteous  countenance  of  British  liberty,  are  we  to 
turn  to  them  the  shameful  parts  of  our  constitution  ? 
are  we  to  give  them  our  weakness  for  their  strength, 
our  opprobrium  for  their  glory,  and  the  slough  of 
slavery,  which  we  are  not  able  to  work  off,  to  sei^ve 
them  for  their  freedom  ? 

*  Lord  Carmarthen. 


SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN    TAXATION.  75 

If  this  be  the  case,  ask  yourselves  this  question : 
Will  they  be  content  in  such  a  state  of  slaveiy  ?  If 
not,  look  to  the  consequences.  Reflect  how  you  are 
to  govern  a  people  who  think  they  ought  to  be  free, 
and  think  they  are  not.  Your  scheme  yields  no  rev- 
enue ;  it  yields  nothing  but  discontent,  disorder,  dis- 
obedience :  and  such  is  the  state  of  America,  that, 
after  wading  up  to  your  eyes  in  blood,  you  could 
only  end  just  where  you  begun,  —  that  is,  to  tax 

where  no  revenue  is  to  be  found,  to My  voice 

fails  me :  my  inclination,  indeed,  carries  me  no  fur- 
ther ;  all  is  confusion  beyond  it. 

Well,  Sir,  I  have  recovered  a  little,  and  before  I 
sit  down  I  must  say  something  to  another  point  with 
wliich  gentlemen  urge  us.  What  is  to  become  of  the 
Declaratory  Act,  asserting  the  entireness  of  British 
legislative  authority,  if  we  abandon  the  practice  of 
taxation  ? 

For  my  part,  I  look  upon  the  rights  stated  in  that 
act  exactly  in  the  manner  in  which  I  viewed  them 
on  its  very  first  proposition,  and  which  I  have  often 
taken  the  liberty,  with  great  humility,  to  lay  before 
you.  I  look,  I  say,  on  the  imperial  rights  of  Great 
Britain,  and  the  privileges  which  the  colonists  ought 
to  enjoy  under  these  rights,  to  be  just  the  most  recon- 
cilable things  in  the  world.  The  Parliament  of  Great 
Britain  sits  at  the  head  of  her  extensive  empire  in  two 
capacities.  One  as  the  local  legislature  of  this  island, 
providing  for  all  things  at  home,  immediately,  and 
by  no  other  instrument  than  the  executive  power. 
The  other,  and  I  think  her  nobler  capacity,  is  what 
I  eall  her  imperial  character ;  in  which,  as  from  the 
til  rone  of  heaven,  she  superintends  all  tlie  several  in- 
ferior legislatures,  and  guides  and  controls  them  all 


76  SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

without  annihilating  any.  As  all  these  provincial 
legislatures  are  only  coordinate  to  each  other,  they 
ought  all  to  be  subordinate  to  her ;  else  they  can  nei- 
ther preserve  mutual  peace,  nor  hope  for  mutual  jus- 
tice, nor  effectually  afford  mutual  assistance.  It  is 
necessary  to  coerce  the  negligent,  to  restrain  the 
violent,  and  to  aid  the  weak  and  deficient,  by  the 
overruling  plenitude  of  her  power.  She  is  never  to 
intrude  into  the  place  of  the  others,  whilst  they  are 
equal  to  the  common  ends  of  their  institution.  But 
in  order  to  enable  Parliament  to  answer  all  these 
ends  of  provident  and  beneficent  superintendence,  her 
powers  must  be  boundless.  The  gentlemen  who 
think  the  powers  of  Parliament  limited  may  please 
themselves  to  talk  of  requisitions.  But  suppose  the 
requisitions  are  not  obeyed  ?  What !  shall  there  be 
no  reserved  power  in  the  empire,  to  supply  a  defi- 
ciency which  may  weaken,  divide,  and  dissipate  the 
whole  ?  We  are  engaged  in  war,  —  the  Secretary  of 
State  calls  upon  the  colonies  to  contribute,  —  some 
would  do  it,  I  think  most  would  cheerfullv  furnish 
whatever  is  demanded,  —  one  or  two,  suppose,  hang 
back,  and,  easing  themselves,  let  the  stress  of  the 
draft  lie  on  the  others,  —  surely  it  is  proper  that  some 
authority  might  legally  say,  "  Tax  yourselves  for 
the  common  supply,  or  Parliament  will  do  it  for  you." 
Tliis  backwardness  was,  as  I  am  told,  actually  the 
case  of  Pennsylvania  for  some  short  time  towards  the 
beginning  of  the  last  war,  owing  to  some  internal  dis- 
sensions in  the  colony.  But  whether  the  fact  were 
so  or  otherwise,  the  case  is  equally  to  be  provided  for 
by  a  competent  sovereign  power.  But  then  this 
ought  to  be  no  ordinary  power,  nor  ever  used  in  the 
first  instance.     This  is  what  I  meant,  when  I  has^e 


SPEECH   ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION.  77 

said,  at  various  times,  that  I  consider  the  power  of 
taxing  in  Parliament  as  an  instrument  of  empire,  and 
not  as  a  means  of  supply. 

•  Such,  Sir,  is  my  idea  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
British  Empire, 'as  distinguished  from  the  Constitu- 
tion of  Britain ;  and  on  these  grounds  I  think  sub- 
ordination and  liberty  may  be  sufficiently  reconciled 
through  the  whole,  —  whether  to  serve  a  refining 
speculatist  or  a  factious  demagogue  I  know  not,  but 
enough  surely  for  the  ease  and  happiness  of  man. 

Sir,  whilst  we  held  this  happy  course,  we  drew 
more  from  the  colonies  than  all  the  impotent  violence 
of  despotism  ever  could  extort  from  them.  We  did 
this  abundantly  in  the  last  war ;  it  has  never  been 
once  denied  ;  and  what  reason  have  we  to  imagine 
that  the  colonies  would  not  have  proceeded  in  supply- 
ing government  as  liberally,  if  you  had  not  stepped 
in  and  hindered  them  from  contributing,  by  inter- 
rupting the  channel  in  which  their  liberality  flowed 
with  so  strong  a  course, —  by  attempting  to  take,  m- 
stead  of  being  satisfied  to  receive  ?  Sir  William 
Temple  says,  that  Holland  has  loaded  itself  with  ten 
times  the  impositions  which  it  revolted  from  Spain 
rather  than  submit  to.  He  says  true.  Tyranny  is 
a  poor  provider.  It  knows  neither  how  to  accumu- 
late nor  how  to  extract. 

I  charge,  therefore,  to  this  new  and  unfortunate  sys- 
tem the  loss  not  only  of  peace,  of  union,  and  of  com- 
merce, but  even  of  revenue,  which  its  friends  are 
contending  for.  It  is  morally  certain  that  we  have 
lost  at  least  a  million  of  free  grants  since  the  peace. 
X  think  we  have  lost  a  great  deal  more ;  and  that 
those  who  look  for  a  revenue  from  the  provinces 
never  could  have  pursued,  even  in  that  light,  a  course 
more  directly  repugnant  to  their  purposes. 


78  SPEECH    ON   AMERICAN   TAXATION. 

Now,  Sir,  I  trust  I  have  shown,  first  on  that  nar- 
row ground  which  the  honorable  gentleman  meas- 
ured, that  you  are  like  to  lose  nothing  by  complying 
with  the  motion,  except  what  you  have  lost  already. 
I  have  shown  afterwards,  that  in  time  of  peace  you 
flourished  in  commerce,  and,  when  war  required  it, 
had  sufficient  aid  from  the  colonies,  while  you  pur- 
sued your  ancient  policy  ;  that  you  threw  everything 
into  confusion,  when  you  made  the  Stamp  Act ;  and 
that  you  restored  everything  to  peace  and  order,  when 
you  repealed  it.  I  have  shown  that  the  revival  of  the 
system  of  taxation  has  produced  the  very  worst  ef- 
fects ;  and  that  the  partial  repeal  has  produced,  not 
partial  good,  but  universal  evil.  Let  these  consid- 
erations, founded  on  facts,  not  one  of  which  can  be 
denied,  bring  us  back  to  our  reason  by  the  road  of 
our  experience. 

I  cannot,  as  I  have  said,  answer  for  mixed  meas- 
ures :  but  surely  this  mixtiire  of  lenity  would  give 
the  whole  a  better  chance  of  success.  When  you 
once  regain  confidence,  the  way  will  be  clear  before 
you.  Then  you  may  enforce  the  Act  of  A^avigation, 
when  it  ought  to  be  enforced.  You  will  yourselves 
open  it,  where  it  ought  still  further  to  be  opened. 
Proceed  in  what  you  do,  whatever  you  do,  from  pol- 
icy, and  not  from  rancor.  Let  us  act  like  men,  let 
us  act  like  statesmen.  Let  us  hold  some  sort  of  con- 
sistent conduct.  It  is  agreed  that  a  revenue  is  not 
Do  be  had  in  America.  If  we  lose  the  profit,  let  us 
get  rid  of  the  odium. 

On  this  business  of  America,  I  confess  I  am  seri- 
ous, even  to  sadness.  I  have  had  but  one  opinion 
concerning  it,  since  I  sat,  and  before  I  sat  in  Par- 
liament. •  The  noble  lord  *  will,  as  usual,  probably, 

*  Lord  North. 


SPEECH    ON    AMERICAN   TAXATION.  79 

attribute  the  part  taken  by  me  and  my  friends  in  tbis 
business  to  a  desire  of  getting  bis  places.  Let  bim 
enjoy  tliis  bappy  and  original  idea.  If  I  deprived 
bim  of  it,  I  sbould  take  away  most  of  bis  wit,  and  all 
bis  argument.  But  I  bad  ratber  bear  tbe  brunt  of 
all  bis  wit,  and  indeed  blows  mucb  heavier,  than 
stand  answerable  to  God  for  embracing  a  system  that 
tends  to  tbe  destruction  of  some  of  tbe  very  best  and 
fairest  of  His  works.  But  I  know  tbe  map  of  Eng- 
land as  well  as  tbe  noble  lord,  or  as  any  other  per- 
son ;  and  I  know  that  the  way  1  take  is  not  tbe  road 
to  preferment.  My  excellent  and  honorable  friend 
under  me  on  the  floor  *  has  trod  that  road  with  great 
toil  for  upwards  of  twenty  years  together.  He  is  not 
yet  arrived  at  the  noble  lord's  destination.  How- 
ever, tbe  tracks  of  my  worthy  friend  are  those  I  have 
ever  wished  to  follow  ;  because  I  know  they  lead  to 
honor.  Long  may  we  tread  tbe  same  road  together, 
whoever  may  accompany  us,  or  whoever  may  laugh 
at  us  on  our  journey  !  I  honestly  and  solemnly  de- 
clare, I  have  in  all  seasons  adhered  to  the  system  of 
1766  for  no  other  reason  than  that  I  think  it  laid 
deep  in  your  truest-interests, —  and  that,  by  limiting 
tbe  exercise,  it  fixes  on  the  firmest  foundations  a 
real,  consistent,  well-grounded  authority  in  Parlia- 
ment. Until  you  come  back  to  that  system,  there 
will  be  no  peace  for  England. 

*  Mr.  Dowdeswell. 


SPEECHES 


AT 


HIS   ARRIVAL   AT   BRISTOL, 


AND   AT  THE 


CONCLUSION   OF  THE  POLL. 

^774- 


VOL.  II 


EDITOR'S   ADVERTISEMENT. 


"B  believe  there  is  no  need  of  an  apology  to 
the  public  for  offering  to  them  any  genuine 
speeches  of  Mr.  Burke :  the  two  contained  in  this 
publication  undoubtedly  are  so.  The  general  appro- 
bation they  met  with  (as  we  hear)  from  all  parties  at 
Bristol  persuades  us  that  a  good  edition  of  them  will 
not  be  unacceptable  in  London  ;  which  we  own  to  be 
the  inducement,  and  we  hope  is  a  justification,  of  our 
offering  it. 

We  do  not  presume  to  descant  on  the  merit  of 
these  speeches  ;  but  as  it  is  no  less  new  than  honor- 
able to  find  a  popular  candidate,  at  a  popular  elec- 
tion, daring  to  avow  his  dissent  to  certain  points  that 
have  been  considered  as  very  popular  objects,  and 
maintaining  himself  on  the  manly  confidence  of  his 
own  opinion,  so  we  must  say  that  it  does  great  credit 
to  the  people  of  England,  as  it  proves  to  the  world, 
that,  to  insure  their  confidence,  it  is  not  necessary 
to  flatter  them,  or  to  affect  a  subserviency  to  their 
passions  or  their  prejudices. 

It  may  be  necessary  to  premise,  that  at  the  opening 
of  the  poll  the  candidates  were  Lord  Clare,  Mr. 
Brickdale,  the  two  last  members,  and  Mr.  Cruger,  a 
considerable  merchant  at  Bristol.  On  the  second  day 
of  the  poll.  Lord  Clare  declined ;  and  a  considerable 
body  of  gentlemen,  who  had  wished  that  the  city  of 


84  EDITOn'S    ADVERTISEMENT. 

Bristol  should,  at  this  critical  season,  be  represented 
by  some  gentleman  of  tried  abilities  and  known  com- 
mercial knowledge,  immediately  put  Mr.  Burke  in 
nomination.  Some  of  them  set  off  express  for  Lon- 
don to  apprise  that  gentleman  of  this  event ;  but  he 
was  gone  to  Malton,  in  Yorkshire.  The  spirit  and 
active  zeal  of  these  gentlemen  followed  him  to  Mal- 
ton. They  arrived  there  just  after  Mr.  Burke's  elec- 
tion for  that  place,  and  invited  him  to  Bristol. 

Mr.  Burke,  as  he  tells  us  in  his  jfirst  speech,  ac- 
quainted his  constituents  with  the  honorable  offer 
that  was  made  him,  and,  with  their  consent,  he  im- 
mediately set  off  for  Bristol,  on  the  Tuesday,  at  six  in 
the  evening ;  he  arrived  at  Bristol  at  half  past  two  in 
the  afternoon,  on  Thursday,  the  IStli  of  October,  being 
the  sixth  day  of  the  poll. 

He  drove  directly  to  the  mayor's  house,  who  not 
being  at  home,  he  proceeded  to  the  Guildhall,  where 
he  ascended  the  hustings,  and  having  saluted  the 
electors,  the  sheriffs,  and  the  two  candidates,  he 
reposed  himself  for  a  few  minutes,  and  then  ad- 
dressed the  electors  in  a  speech  which  was  received 
with  great  and  universal  applause  and  approbation . 


SPEECH 


AT 


HIS  AURIVAL  AT  BIIISTOL. 


GENTLEMEN,  — I  am  come  hither  to  sohcit  iii 
person  that  favor  which  my  friends  have  hither- 
to endeavored  to  procure  for  me,  by  the  most  obliging, 
and  to  me  the  most  honorable  exertions. 

I  have  so  high  an  o^Dinion  of  the  great  trust  which 
you  have  to  confer  on  this  occasion,  and,  by  long  ex- 
perience, so  just  a  diffidence  in  my  abilities  to  fill  it 
in  a  manner  adequate  even  to  my  own  ideas,  that  I 
should  never  have  ventured  of  myself  to  intrude  into 
that  awful  situation.  But  since  I  am  called  upon  by 
the  desire  of  several  respectable  fellow-subjects,  as  I 
have  done  at  other  times,  I  give  up  my  fears  to  their 
wishes.  Whatever  my  other  deficiencies  may  be,  I 
do  not  know  what  it  is  to  be  wanting  to  my  friends. 

I  am  not  fond  of  attempting  to  raise  public  expec- 
tations by  great  promises.  At  this  time,  there  is  much 
cause  to  consider,  and  very  little  to  presume.  We 
seem  to  be  approaching  to  a  great  crisis  in  our  affairs, 
which  calls  for  the  whole  wisdom  of  the  wisest  among 
us,  without  being  able  to  assure  ourselves  that  any 
wisdom  can  preserve  us  from  many  and  great  incon- 
veniences. You  know  I  speak  of  our  unhappy  con- 
test with  America.  I  confess,  it  is  a  matter  on  Avhich 
I  look  down  as  from  a  precipice.  It  is  difficult  in 
itself,  and  it  is  rendered  more  intricate  by  a  great 


88  SPEECH    AT   HIS    AREIVAL    AT   BRISTOL. 

variety  of  plans  of  conduct.  I  do  not  mean  to  enter 
into  them.  I  will  not  suspect  a  want  of  good  inten- 
tion in  framing  them.  But  however  pure  the  inten- 
•tions  of  their  authors  may  have  been,  we  all  know 
that  the  event  has  been  unfortunate.  The  means  of 
recovering  our  affairs  are  not  obvious.  So  many  great 
questions  of  commerce,  of  finance,  of  constitution,  and 
of  policy  are  involved  in  this  American  deliberation, 
that  I  dare  engage  for  nothing,  but  that  I  shall  give 
it,  without  any  predilection  to  former  opinions,  or 
any  sinister  bias  whatsoever,  the  most  honest  and  im- 
partial consideration  of  which  I  am  capable.  The 
public  has  a  full  right  to  it ;  and  this  gi'eat  city, 
a  main  pillar  in  the  commercial  interest  of  Great 
Britain,  must  totter  on  its  base  by  the  slightest  mis- 
take with  regard  to  our  American  measures. 

Thus  much,  however,  I  think  it  not  amiss  to  lay 
before  you, — that  I  am  not,  I  hope,  apt  to  take  up  or 
lay  down  my  opinions  lightly.  I  have  held,  and  ever 
shall  maintain,  to  the  best  of  my  power,  unimpaired 
and  undiminished,  the  just,  wise,  and  necessary  con- 
stitutional superiority  of  Great  Britain.  This  is  neces- 
sary for  America  as  well  as  for  us.  I  never  mean  to 
depart  from  it.  Whatever  may  be  lost  by  it,  I  avow 
it.  The  forfeiture  even  of  your  favor,  if  by  such  a 
declaration  I  could  forfeit  it,  though  the  first  object 
of  my  ambition,  never  will  make  me  disguise  my  sen- 
timents on  this  subject. 

But  —  I  have  over  had  a  clear  opinion,  and  have 
ever  held  a  constant  correspondent  conduct,  that  this 
superiority  is  consistent  with  all  the  liberties  a  sober 
and  spirited  American  ought  to  desire.  I  never  mean 
to  put  any  colonist,  or  any  human  creature,  in  a  sit- 
uation not  becoming  a  free  man.     To  reconcile  Brit- 


SPEECH   AT   HIS    AKRIVAL   AT   BRISTOL.  87 

isli  superiority  with  American  liberty  shall  be  my 
groat  object,  as  far  as  my  little  faculties  extend.  I 
am  far  from  thinking  that  both,  even  yet,  may  not  be 
preserved. 

When  I  first  devoted  myself  to  the  public  service, 
I  considered  how  I  should  render  myself  fit  for  it ; 
and  this  I  did  by  endeavoring  to  discover  what  it  was 
that  gave  this  country  the  rank  it  holds  in  the  world. 
I  found  that  our  prosperity  and  dignity  arose  princi- 
pally, if  not  solely,  from  two  sources :  our  Constitu- 
tion, and  commerce.  Both  these  I  have  spared  no 
study  to  understand,  and  no  endeavor  to  support. 

The  distinguishing  part  of  our  Constitution  is  its 
liberty.  To  preserve  that  liberty  inviolate  seems  the 
particular  duty  and  proper  trust  of  a  member  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  But  the  liberty,  the  only  lib- 
erty, I  mean  is  a  liberty  connected  with  order :  that 
not  only  exists  along  with  order  and  virtue,  but  which 
cannot  exist  at  all  without  them.  It  inheres  in  good 
and  steady  government,  as  in  its  substance  and  vital 
principle. 

The  other  source  of  our  power  is  commerce,  of 
which  you  are  so  large  a  part,  and  which  cannot 
exist,  no  more  than  your  liberty,  without  a  connec- 
tion with  many  virtues.  It  has  ever  been  a  very 
particular  and  a  very  favorite  object  of  my  study,  in 
its  principles,  and  in  its  details.  I  tbink  many  here 
are  acquainted  with  the  truth  of  what  I  say.  This  I 
know,  —  that  I  have  ever  had  my  house  open,  and  my 
poor  services  ready,  for  traders  and  manufacturers 
of  every  denomination.  My  favorite  ambition  is,  to 
liave  those  services  acknowledged.  I  now  appear  be- 
fore you  to  make  trial,  whether  my  earnest  endeavors 
have  been  so  wholly  oppressed  by  the  weakness  of  my 


88  SPEECH   AT   HIS   ARRIVAL   AT   BRISTOL. 

abilities  as  to  be  rendered  insignificant  in  the  eyes  of 
a  great  trading  city ;  or  whether  you  choose  to  give  a 
weight  to  humble  abilities,  for  the  sake  of  the  honest 
exertions  with  which  they  are  accompanied.  This  is 
my  trial  to-day.  My  industry  is  not  on  trial.  Of  my 
industry  I  am  sure,  as  far  as  my  constitution  of  mind 
and  body  admitted. 

Wlien  I  was  invited  by  many  respectable  mer- 
chants, freeholders,  and  freemen  of  this  city  to  offer 
them  my  services,  I  had  just  received  the  honor  of  an 
election  at  another  place,  at  a  very  great  distance 
from  this.  I  immediately  opened  the  matter  to  those 
of  my  worthy  constituents  who  were  with  me,  and 
they  unanimously  advised  me  not  to  decline  it.  They 
told  me  that  they  had  elected  me  with  a  view  to  the 
public  service  ;  and  as  great  questions  relative  to  our 
commerce  'and  colonies  were  imminent,  that  in  such 
matters  I  might  derive  authority  and  support  from 
the  representation  of  this  great  commercial  city : 
they  desired  me,  therefore,  to  set  off  without  delay, 
very  well  persuaded  that  I  never  could  forget  my  ob- 
ligations to  them  or  to  my  friends,  for  the  choice  they 
had  made  of  me.  Prom  that  time  to  this  instant  I 
have  not  slept ;  and  if  I  should  have  the  honor  of 
being  freely  chosen  by  you,  I  hope  I  shall  be  as  far 
from  slumbering  or  sleeping,  when  your  service  re- 
quires me  to  be  awake,  as  I  have  been  in  coming  to 
offer  myself  a  candidate  for  your  favor. 


SPEECH 


TO  THE 


ELECTORS   OF   BRISTOL, 

ON   HIS   BEING   DECLARED  BY  THE   SHERIFFS   DULY 

ELECTED    ONE   OF   THE   REPRESENTATIVES 

IN  PARLIAMENT  FOR  THAT  CITY, 

On  Thttrsdat,  the  3d  of  November,  1774. 


GENTLEMEN,  —  I  cannot  avoid  sympathizing 
strongly  with  tlie  feelings  of  the  gentleman 
who  has  received  the  same  honor  that  you  "have  con- 
ferred on  me.  If  he,  who  was  bred  and  passed  his 
whole  life  amongst  you, —  if  he,  who,  through  the  easy 
gradations  of  acquaintance,  friendship,  and  esteem, 
has  obtained  the  honor  which  seems  of  itself,  natu- 
rally and  almost  insensibly,  to  meet  with  those  who, 
by  the  even  tenor  of  pleasing  manners  and  social  vir- 
tues, slide  into  the  love  and  confidence  of  their  fel- 
low-citizens,—  if  he  cannot  speak  but  with  great 
emotion  on  this  subject,  surrounded  as  he  is  on  all 
sides  with  his  old  friends, —  you  will  have  the  good- 
ness to  excuse  me,  if  my  real,  unaffected  embarrass- 
ment prevents  me  from  expressing  my  gratitude  to 
you  as  I  ought. 

I  was  brought  hither  under  the  disadvantage  of 
being  unknown,  even  by  sight,  to  any  of  you.  No 
previous  canvass  was  made  for  me.  I  was  put  in 
nomination  after  the  poll  was  opened.     I  did  not  ap- 


90    SPEECH  AT  THE  CONCLUSION  OF  THE  POLL. 

pear  until  it  was  far  advanced.  If,  under  all  these 
accumulated  disadvantages,  your  good  opinion  has 
carried  me  to  this  happy  point  of  success,  you  will 
pardon  me,  if  I  can  only  say  to  you  collectively,  as  I 
said  to  you  individually,  simply  and  plainly,  I  thank 
you,  —  I  am  obliged  to  you,  —  I  am  not  insensible 
of  your  kindness. 

This  is  all  that  I  am  able  to  say  for  the  inestimable 
favor  you  have  conferred  upon  me.  But  I  cannot  be 
satisfied  without  saying  a  little  more  in  defence  of 
the  right  you  have  to  confer  such  a  favor.  The  per- 
son that  appeared  here  as  counsel  for  the  candidate 
who  so  long  and  so  earnestly  solicited  your  votes 
thinks  proper  to  deny  that  a  very  great  part  of  you 
have  any  votes  to  give.  He  fixes  a  standard  period 
of  time  in  his  own  imagination,  (not  what  the  law  de- 
fines, but  merely  what  the  convenience  of  his  client 
suggests,)  by  which  he  would  cut  off  at  one  stroke  all 
those  freedoms  which  are  the  dearest  privileges  of 
your  corporation,  —  which  the  Common  Law  author- 
izes, —  which  your  magistrates  are  compelled  to  grant, 
—  which  come  duly  authenticated  into  this  court,  — 
and  are  saved  in  the  clearest  words,  and  with  the 
most  religious  care  and  tenderness,  in  that  very  act 
of  Parliament  which  was  made  to  regulate  the  elec- 
tions by  freemen,  and  to  prevent  all  possible  abuses 
in  making  them. 

I  do  not  intend  to  argue  the  matter  here.  My 
learned  counsel  has  supported  your  cause  with  his 
usual  ability ;  the  worthy  sheriffs  have  acted  with 
their  usual  equity ;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  the 
same  equity  which  dictates  the  return  will  guide 
the  final  determination.  I  had  the  honor,  in  con- 
junction with  many  far  wiser  men,  to  contribute  a 


SPEECH  AT  THE  CONCLUSION  OF  THE  POLL.    91 

very  small  assistance,  but,  however,  some  assistance, 
to  the  forming  the  judicature  which  is  to  try  such 
qTiestions.  It  would  be  imnatural  in  me  to  doubt  the 
justice  of  that  court,  in  the  trial  of  my  own  cause,  to 
which  I  have  been  so  active  to  give  jurisdiction  over 
every  other. 

I  assure  the  worthy  freemen,  and  this  corporation, 
that,  if  the  gentleman  perseveres  in  the  intentions 
which  his  present  warmth  dictates  to  him,  I  will 
attend  their  cause  with  diligence,  and  I  hope  with 
effect.  For,  if  I  know  anything  of  myself,  it  is  not 
my  own  interest  in  it,  but  my  full  conviction,  that 
induces  me  to  tell  you,  I  think  there  is  not  a 
shadoiv  of  doubt  in  the  case. 

I  do  not  imagine  that  you  find  me  rash  in  declaring 
myself,  or  very  forward  in  troubling  you.  From  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  the  election,  I  have  kept  si- 
lence in  all  matters  of  discussion.  I  have  never  asked 
a  question  of  a  voter  on  the  other  side,  or  supported 
a  doubtful  vote  on  my  own.  I  respected  the  abilities 
of  my  managers  ;  I  relied  on  the  candor  of  the  court. 
I  think  the  worthy  sheriffs  will  bear  me  witness  that 
I  have  never  once  made  an  attempt  to  impose  upon 
their  reason,  to  surprise  their  justice,  or  to  ruffle  their 
temper.  I  stood  on  the  hustings  (except  when  I  gave 
my  thanks  to  those  who  favored  me-with  their  votes) 
less  like  a  candidate  than  an  unconcerned  spectator 
of  a  pul)lic  proceeding.  But  here  the  face  of  things 
is  altered.  Here  is  an  attempt  for  a  general  massa- 
cre of  suffrages, —  an  attempt,  by  a  promiscuous  car- 
nage of  friends  and  foes,  to  exterminate  above  two 
thousand  votes,  including  seven  hundred  polled  for  the 
gentleman  himself  u'ho  noiv  complains,  and  who  would 
destroy   the   friends   whom    he    has   obtained,   only 


92    SPEECH  AT  THE  CONCLUSION  OF  THE  POLL. 

because  he  cannot  obtain  as  many  of  them  as  he 
wishes. 

H  jw  he  will  be  permitted,  in  another  place,  to  stul- 
tify and  disable  himself,  and  to  plead  against  his  own 
acts,  is  another  question.  The  law  will  decide  it.  I 
shall  only  speak  of  it  as  it  concerns  the  propriety  of 
public  conduct  in  this  city.  I  do  not  pretend  to  lay 
down  rules  of  decorum  for  other  gentlemen.  They 
are  best  judges  of  the  mode  of  proceeding  that  will 
recommend  them  to  the  favor  of  their  fellow-citizens. 
But  I  confess  I  should  look  rather  awkward,  if  I  had 
been  the  very  first  to  produce  the  new  copies  of  freedom, 
—  if  I  had  persisted  in  producing  them  to  the  last,  — 
if  I  had  ransacked,  with  the  most  unremitting  indus- 
try and  the  most  penetrating  research,  the  remotest 
corners  of  the  kingdom  to  discover  them,  —  if  I  were 
then,  all  at  once,  to  turn  short,  and  declare  that  I 
had  been  sporting  all  this  while  with  the  right  of 
election,  and  that  I  had  been  drawing  out  a  poll, 
upon  no  sort  of  rational  grounds,  which  disturbed  the 
peace  of  my  fellow-citizens  for  a  month  together  ;  —  I 
really,  for  my  part,  should  appear  awkward  under 
such  circumstances. 

It  would  be  still  more  awkward  in  me,  if  1  were 
gravely  to  look  the  sheriffs  in  the  face,  and  to  tell 
them  they  were  not  to  determine  my  cause  on  my 
own  principles,  nor  to  make  the  return  upon  those 
votes  upon  which  I  had  rested  my  election.  Such 
would  be  my  appearance  to  the  court  and  magis- 
trates. 

But  how  should  I  appear  to  the  voters  themselves  ? 
If  I  had  gone  round  to  the  citizens  entitled  to  free- 
dom, and  squeezed  them  by  the  hand,  —  "  Sir,  I  hum- 
bly beg  your  vote,  — I  shall  be  eternally  thankful, — ■ 


SPEECH  AT  THE  CONCLUSION  OF  THE  POLL.    93 

may  I  hope  for  the  honor  of  your  support  ?  —  Well ! 

—  come,  —  we  shall  see  you  at  the  Council-House." 

—  If  I  were  then  to  deliver  them  to  my  managers, 
pack  them  into  tallies,  vote  them  off  in  court,  and 
when  I  heard  from  the  bar,  —  "Such  a  one  only! 
and  such  a  one  forever !  — he 's  my  man ! "  —  "  Thank 
you,  good  Sir,  —  Hah  !  my  worthy  friend  !  thank  you 
kindly,  —  that's  an  honest  fellow,  —  how  is  your  good 
family  ?  "  —  "Whilst  these  words  were  hardly  out  of 
my  mouth,  if  I  should  have  wheeled  round  at  once, 
and  told  them,  —  "  Get  you  gone,  you  pack  of  worth- 
less fellows  !  you  have  no  votes,  —  you  are  usurpers  ! 
you  are  intruders  on  the  rights  of  real  freemen !  I 
will  have  nothing  to  do  with  you  !  you  ouglit  never  to 
have  been  produced  at  this  election,  and  the  sheriifs 
ought  not  to  have  admitted  you  to  poll !  " 

Gentlemen,  I  should  make  a  strange  figure,  if  my 
conduct  had  been  of  this  sort.  I  am  not  so  old 
an  acquaintance  of  yours  as  the  worthy  gentleman. 
Indeed,  I  could  not  have  ventured  on  such  kind  of 
freedoms  with  you.  But  I  am  bound,  and  I  will  en- 
deavor, to  have  justice  done  to  the  rights  of  freemen, 

—  even  though  I  should  at  the  same  time  be  obliged 
to  vindicate  the  former  *  part  of  my  antagonist's  con- 
duct against  his  own  present  inclinations. 

I  owe  myself,  in  all  things,  to  all  the  freemen  of 
this  city.  My  particular  friends  have  a  demand  on 
me  that  I  should  not  deceive  their  expectations. 
Never  was  cause  or  man  supported  with  more  con- 
stancy, more  activity,  more  spirit.  I  have  been  sup- 
ported with  a  zeal,  indeed,  and  heartiness  in  my 
friends,  which  (if  their  object  had  been  at  all  propor- 

*  Mr.  Brickdale  opened  his  poll,  it  seems,  with  a  tally  of  those 
very  kind  of  freemen,  and  voted  many  hundreds  of  them. 


94    SPEECH  AT  THE  CONCLUSION  OP  THE  POLL. 

tioiicd  to  tlieir  endeavors)  could  never  be  sufficiently 
commended.  They  supported  me  upon  the  most  lib- 
eral principles.  They  wished  that  the  members  for 
Bristol  should  be  chosen  for  the  city,  and  for  their 
country  at  large,  and  not  for  themselves. 

So  far  they  are  not  disappointed.  If  I  possess 
nothing  else,  I  am  sure  I  possess  the  temper  that  is 
fit  for  your  service.  I  know  nothing  of  Bristol,  but 
by  the  favors  I  have  received,  and  the  virtues  I  have 
seen  exerted  in  it. 

I  shall  ever  retain,  what  I  now  feel,  the  most  per- 
fect and  grateful  attachment  to  my  friends,  —  and 
I  have  no  enmities,  no  resentments.  I  never  can 
consider  fidelity  to  engagements  and  constancy  in 
friendships  but  with  the  highest  approbation,  even 
when  those  noble  qualities  are  employed  against  my 
own  pretensions.  The  gentleman  who  is  not  so  for- 
tunate as  I  have  been  in  this  contest  enjoys,  in  this 
respect,  a  consolation  full  of  honor  both  to  himself 
and  to  his  friends.  They  have  certainly  left  notliing 
undone  for  his  service. 

As  for  the  trifling  petulance  which  the  rage  of 
party  stirs  up  in  little  minds,  tliough  it  should  show 
itself  even  in  this  court,  it  has  not  made  the  slightest 
impression  on  me.  The  highest  flight  of  such  clam- 
orous birds  is  winged  in  an  inferior  region  of  the  air. 
We  hear  them,  and  we  look  upon  them,  just  as  you. 
Gentlemen,  when  you  enjoy  the  serene  air  on  your 
lofty  rocks,  look  down  upon  the  gulls  that  skim  the 
mud  of  your  river,  when  it  is  exhausted  of  its  tide. 

I  am  sorry  I  cannot  conclude  without  saying  a 
word  on  a  topic  touched  upon  by  my  worthy  col- 
league. I  wish  that  topic  had  been  passed  by  at  a 
time  when  I  have  so  little  leisure  to  discuss  it.     But 


SPEECH  AT  THE  CONCLUSION  OF  THE  POLL.    95 

since  he  has  thought  proper  to  throw  it  out,  I  owe 
you  a  clear  exjDhmation  of  my  poor  sentiments  on 
that  sul)jcct. 

He  tells  you  that  "  the  topic  of  instructions  has 
occasioned  much  altercation  and  uneasiness  in  this 
city  "  :  and  he  expresses  himself  (if  I  understand  him 
rightly)  in  favor  of  the  coercive  authority  of  such  in- 
structions. 

Certainly,  Gentlemen,  it  ought  to  be  the  happiness 
and  glory  of  a  representative  to  live  in  the  strictest 
union,  the  closest  correspondence,  and  the  most  un- 
reserved communication  with  his  constituents.  Their 
wishes  pught  to  have  great  weight  with  him ;  their 
opinions  high  respect ;  their  business  unremitted  at- 
tention. It  is  his  duty  to  sacrifice  his  repose,  his 
pleasure,  his  satisfactions,  to  theirs,  —  and  above  all, 
ever,  and  in  all  cases,  to  prefer  their  interest  to  his 
own. 

But  his  unbiased  opinion,  his  mature  judgment, 
his  enlightened  conscience,  he  ought  not  to  sacrifice 
to  you,  to  any  man,  or  to  any  set  of  men  living. 
These  he  does  not  derive  from  your  pleasure, — no, 
nor  from  the  law  and  the  Constitution.  They  are  a 
trust  from  Providence,  for  the  abuse  of  which  he  is 
deeply  answerable.  Your  representative  owes  you, 
not  his  industry  only,  but  his  judgment ;  and  he  be- 
trays, instead  of  serving  you,  if  he  sacrifices  it  to  your 
opinion. 

My  Avorthy  colleague  says,  his  will  ought  to  bo  sub- 
servient to  yours.  If  that  be  all,  the  tiling  is  inno- 
cent. If  government  were  a  matter  of  will  upon  any 
side,  yours,  without  question,  ought  to  be  superior. 
But  government  and  legislation  are  matters  of  reason 
and  judgment,  and  not  of  inclination  ;  and  what  sort 


96         SPEECH   AT   THE   CONCLUSION   OF   THE   POLL. 

of  reason  is  that  in  which  the  determination  precedes 
the  discussion,  in  which  one  set  of  men  deliberate 
and  another  decide,  and  where  those  who  form  the 
conclusion  are  perhaps  three  hundred  miles  distant 
from  those  who  hear  the  arguments  ? 

To  deliver  an  opinion  is  the  right  of  all  men  ;  that 
of  constituents  is  a  weighty  and  respectable  opinion, 
which  a  representative  ought  always  to  rejoice  to 
hear,  and  which  he  ought  always  most  seriously  to 
consider.  But  authoritative  instructions,  mandates 
issued,  which  the  member  is  bound  blindly  and  im- 
plicitly to  obey,  to  vote,  and  to  argue  for,  though 
conti'ary  to  the  clearest  conviction  of  his  judgment 
and  conscience,  —  these  are  things  utterly  unknown 
to  the  laws  of  this  land,  and  which  arise  from  a  fun- 
damental mistake  of  the  whole  order  and  tenor  of  our 
Constitution. 

Parliament  is  not  a  congress  of  ambassadors  from 
different  and  hostile  interests,  which  interests  each 
must  maintain,  as  an  agent  and  advocate,  against  oth- 
er agents  and  advocates  ;  but  Parliament  is  a  deliber- 
ative assembly  of  one  nation,  with  one  interest,  that  of 
the  whole  —  where  not  local  purposes,  not  local  preju- 
dices, ought  to  guide,  but  the  general  good,  resulting 
from  the  general  reason  of  the  whole.  You  choose 
a  member,  indeed ;  but  when  you  have  chosen  him, 
he  is  not  member  of  Bristol,  but  he  is  a  member  of 
Parliament.  If  the  local  constituent  should  have 
an  interest  or  should  form  an  hasty  opinion  evidently 
opposite  to  the  real  good  of  the  rest  of  the  communi- 
ty, the  member  for  that  place  ought  to  be  as  far  as 
any  other  from  any  endeavor  to  give  it  effect.  I  beg 
pardon  for  saying  so  much  on  this  subject ;  I  have 
been  unwillingly  drawn  into  it ;  but  I  shall  ever  use 


SPEECH  AT  THE  CONCLUSION  OF  THE  POLL.    97 

a  respectful  frankness  of  communication  with  you. 
Your  faithful  friend,  your  devoted  servant,  I  shall  be 
to  the  end  of  my  life  :  a  flatterer  you  do  not  wish  for. 
On  this  point  of  instructions,  however,  I  think  it 
scarcely  possible  we  ever  can  have  any  sort  of  differ- 
ence. Perhaps  I  may  give  you  too  much,  rather 
than  too  little  trouble. 

From  the  first  hour  I  was  encouraged  to  court  your 
favor,  to  this  happy  day  of  obtaining  it,  I  have  never 
promised  you  anything  but  humble  and  persevering 
endeavors  to  do  my  duty.  The  weight  of  that  duty, 
I  confess,  makes  me  tremble  ;  and  whoever  well  con- 
siders what  it  is,  of  all  things  in  the  world,  will  fly 
from  what  has  the  least  likeness  to  a  positive  and  pre- 
cipitate engagement.  To  be  a  good  member  of  Par- 
liament is,  let  me  tell  you,  no  easy  task,  —  especially 
at  this  time,  when  there  is  so  strong  a  disposition  to 
run  into  the  perilous  extremes  of  servile  compliance 
or  wild  popularity.  To  unite  circumspection  with 
vigor  is  absolutely  necessary,  but  it  is  extremely 
difficult.  We  are  now  members  for  a  rich  commer- 
cial city ;  this  city,  however,  is  but  a  part  of  a  rich 
commercial  nation^  the  interests  of  which  are  various, 
multiform,  and  intricate.  We  are  members  for  that 
great  nation,  which,  however,  is  itself  but  part  of  a 
great  empire,  extended  by  our  virtue  and  our  fortune 
to  the  farthest  limits  of  the  East  and  of  the  West. 
All  these  wide-spread  interests  must  be  considered, — 
must  be  compared,  —  must  be  reconciled,  if  possible. 
We  are  members  for  a  free  country ;  and  surely  we 
all  know  that  the  machine  of  a  free  constitution  is  no 
simple  thing,  but  as  intricate  and  as  delicate  as  it  is 
valuable.  We  are  members  in  a  great  and  ancient 
monarchy  ;  and  we  must  preserve  religiously  the  true, 

vor-.  II.  7 


98    SPEECH  AT  THE  CONCLUSION  OF  THE  POLL. 

legal  rights  of  the  sovereign,  which  form  the  key- 
stone that  binds  together  the  noble  and  well-con- 
structed arch  of  our  empire  and  our  Constitution.  A 
constitution  made  up  of  balanced  powers  must  ever 
be  a  critical  thing.  As  such  I  mean  to  touch  that 
part  of  it  which  comes  within  my  reach.  I  know  my 
inability,  and  I  wish  for  support  from  every  quarter. 
In  particular  I  shall  aim  at  the  friendship,  and  shall 
cultivate  the  best  correspondence,  of  the  worthy  col- 
league you  have  given  me. 

I  trouble  you  no  farther  than  once  more  to  thank 
you  all  :  you.  Gentlemen,  for  your  favors  ;  the  candi- 
dates, for  their  temperate  and  polite  behavior ;  and 
the  sheriffs,  for  a  conduct  which  may  give  a  model 
for  all  who  are  in  public  stations. 


SPEECH 


ON 


MOVING   HIS   RESOLUTIONS   FOR  CONCILIA- 
TION. WITH   THE   COLONIES. 

March  22,  1775. 


SPEECH. 


I  HOPE,  Sir,  that,  notwithstanding  the  austerity  of 
the  Chair,  your  good-nature  will  incline  you  to 
some  degree  of  indulgence  towards  human  frailty. 
You  will  not  think  it  unnatural,  that  those  who  have 
,  an  object  depending,  which  strongly  engages  their 
>r^--hopes  and  fears,  should  be  somewhat  inclined  to  su- 
perstition. As  I  came  into  the  House,  full  of  anxiety 
about  the  event  of  my  motion,  I  found, to  my  infinite 
surprise,  that  the  grand  penal  bill  by  which  we  had 
passed  sentence  on  the  trade  and  sustenance  of  Amer- 
ica is  to  be  returned  to  us  from  the  other  House.*  I 
do  confess,  I  could  not  help  looking  on  this  event  as 
a  fortunate  omen.  I  look  upon  it  as  a  sort  of  Prov- 
idential favor,  by  which  we  are  put  once  more  in  pos- 
session of  our  deliberative  capacity,  upon  a  business 
so  very  questionable  in  its  nature,  so  very  uncertain 
in  its  issue.  By  the  return  of  this  bill,  which  seemed 
to  have  taken  its  flight  forever,  we  are  at  this  very  in- 
stant nearly  as  free  to  choose  a  plan  for  our  Amer- 
ican government  as  we  were  on  the  first  day  of  the 

*  The  act  to.  restrain  the  trade  and  comnaercc  of  the  provinces  of 
Massachusetts  Bay  and  New  Hampshire,  and  colonies  of  Connecti- 
cut and  Rhode  Island  and  Providence  Plantation,  in  North  America, 
to  Great  Britain,  Ireland,  and  the  British  Islands  in  the  West  In- 
dies; and  to  prohihit  such  provinces  aiul  colonies  from  carryinj^  on 
any  fishery  on  the  banks  of  Newfoundland,  and  other  places  therein 
mentioned,  under  certain  conditions  and  limitations. 


102        SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA. 

session.  If,  Sir,  we  incline  to  the  side  of  conciliation, 
we  are  not  at  all  embarrassed  (unless  we  please  to 
make  ourselves  so)  by  any  incongruous  mixture  of 
coercion  and  restraint.  We  are  therefore  called  up- 
on, as  it  were  by  a  superior  warning  voice,  again  to 
attend  to  America,  —  to  attend  to  the  whole  of  it  to- 
gether, —  and  to  review  the  subject  with  an  unusual 
degree  of  care  and  calmness. 

Surely  it  is  an  awful  subject,  —  or  there  is  none  so 
on  this  side  of  the  grave.  When  I  first  had  the 
honor  of  a  seat  in  this  House,  the  affairs  of  that 
continent  pressed  themselves  upon  us  as  the  most 
important  and  most  delicate  object  of  Parliamentary 
attention.  My  little  share  in  this  great  delibera- 
tion oppressed  me.  I  found  myself  a  partaker  in 
a  very  high  trust ;  and  having  no  sort  of  reason  to 
rely  on  the  strength  of  my  natural  abilities  for  the 
proper  execution  of  that  trust,  I  was  obliged  to  take 
more  than  common  pains  to  instruct  myself  in  ev- 
erything which  relates  to  our  colonies.  I  was  not 
less  under  the  necessity  of  forming  some  fixed  ideas 
concerning  the  general  policy  of  the  British  empire. 
Something  of  this  sort  seemed  to  be  indispensable, 
in  order,  amidst  so  vast  a  fluctuation  of  passions  and 
opinions,  to  concentre  my  thoughts,  to  ballast  my 
conduct,  to  preserve  me  from  being  blown  about 
by  every  wind  of  fashionable  doctrine.  I  really  did 
not  think  it  safe  or  manly  to  have  fresh  principles 
to  seek  upon  every  fresh  mail  which  should  arrive 
from  America. 

At  that  period  I  had  the  fortune  to  find  myself 
in  perfect  concurrence  with  a  large  majority  in  this 
House.  Bowing  under  that  high  authority,  and  pen- 
etrated with  the  sharpness  and  strength  of  that  early 


SrEECH   ON   CO^"CILIATION    WITH   AMERICA.         103 

impression,  I  have  coiitiimed  ever  since,  without  the 
least  deviation,  in  my  original  sentiments.  Whetlier 
this  be  owing  to  an  obstinate  perseverance  in  error,  or 
to  a  religious  adherence  to  what  appears  to  me  truth 
and  reason,  it  is  in  your  equity  to  judge. 

Sir,  Parliament,  having  an  enlarged  view  of  objects, 
made,  during  this  interval,  more  frequent  changes  in 
their  sentiments  and  their  conduct  than  could  be 
justified  in  a  particular  person  upon  the  contracted 
scale  of  private  information.  But  though  I  do  not 
hazard  anything  approaching  to  a  censure  on  the  mo- 
tives of  former  Parliaments  to  all  those  alterations, 
one  fact  is  undoubted,  —  that  under  them  the  state 
of  America  has  been  kept  in  continual  agitation. 
Everything  administered  as  remedy  to  the  public 
complaint,  if  it  did  not  produce,  was  at  least  followed 
by,  an  heightening  of  the  distemper,  imtil,  by  a 
variety  of  experiments,  that  important  country  has 
been  brought  into  her  present  situation,  —  a  situa- 
tion which  I  will  not  miscall,  which  I  dare  not  name, 
which  I  scarcely  know  how  to  comprehend  in  the 
terms  of  any  description. 

In  this  posture.  Sir,  things  stood  at  the  beginning 
of  the  session.  About  that  time,  a  worthy  member,* 
of  great  Parliamentary  experience,  who  in  the  year 
1766  filled  the  chair  of  the  American  Committee 
with  much  ability,  took  me  aside,  and,  lamenting  the 
present  aspect  of  our  politics,  told  me,  things  were 
come  to  such  a  pass  that  our  former  methods  of  pro- 
ceeding in  the  House  would  be  no  longer  tolerated, 
—  that  the  public  tribunal  (never  too  indulgent  to  a 
long  and  unsuccessful  opposition)  would  now  scruti- 
nize our  conduct  with  miusual  .severity,  —  that  the 

*  Mr.  Hose  Fuller. 


104         SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA. 

very  vicissitudes  and  sliiftings  of  ministerial  meas- 
ures, instead  of  convicting  their  authors  of  incon- 
stancy and  "want  of  system,  would  be  taken  as  an 
occasion  of  charging  us  with  a  predetermined  discon- 
tent which  nothing  could  satisfy,  whilst  we  accused 
every  measure  of  vigor  as  cruel  and  every  proposal 
of  lenity  as  weak  and  irresolute.  The  public,  he 
said,  would  not  have  patience  to  see  us  play  the  game 
out  with  our  adversaries  ;  we  must  produce  our  hand : 
it  would  be  expected  that  those  who  for  many  years 
had  been  active  in  such  affairs  should  show  that  they 
had  formed  some  clear  and  decided  idea  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  colony  government,  and  were  capable  of 
drawing  out  something  like  a  platform  of  the  ground 
which  might  be  laid  for  future  and  permanent  tran- 
quillity. 

I  felt  the  truth  of  what  my  honorable  friend  rep- 
resented ;  but  I  felt  my  situation,  too.  His  applica- 
tion might  have  been  made  with  far  greater  propriety 
to  many  other  gentlemen.  No  man  was,  indeed,  ever 
better  disposed,  or  worse  qualified,  for  such  an  under- 
taking, than  myself.  Though  I  gave  so  far  into  his 
opinion,  that  I  immediately  threw  my  thoughts  into  a 
sort  of  Parliamentary  form,  I  was  by  no  means  equally 
ready  to  produce  them.  It  generally  argues  some 
degree  of  natural  impotence  of  mind,  or  some  want 
of  knowledge  of  the  world,  to  hazard  plans  of  gov- 
ernment, except  from  a  seat  of  authority.  Proposi- 
tions are  made,  not  only  ineffectually,  but  somewhat 
disreputably,  when  the  minds  of  men  are  not  prop- 
erly disposed  for  their  reception  ;  and  for  my  part,  I 
am  not  ambitious  of  ridicule,  not  absolutely  a  candi- 
date for  disgrace. 

Besides,  Sir,  to  speak  the  plain  truth,  I  have  in  gen- 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.         105 

oral  no  very  exalted  opinion  of  the  virtue  of  paper 
government,  nor  of  any  politics  in  which  the  plan  is 
to  be  wholly  separated  from  the  execution.  But  when 
I  saw  that  anger  and  violence  prevailed  every  day 
more  and  more,  and  that  things  were  hastening 
towards  an  incurable  alienation  of  our  colonies,  I 
confess  my  caution  gave  way.  .  I  felt  this  as  one  of 
those  few  moments  in  which  decorum  yields  to  an 
higher  duty.  Public  calamity  is  a  mighty  leveller ; 
and  there  are  occasions  when  any,  even  the  slightest, 
chance- of  doing  good  must  be  laid  hold  on,  even  by 
the  most  inconsiderable  person. 

To  restore  order  and  repose  to  an  empire  so  great 
and  so  distracted  as  ours  is,  merely  in  the  attempt, 
an  undertaking  that  would  ennoble  the  flights  of  the 
highest  genius,  and  obtain  pardon  for  the  efforts  of 
the  meanest  understanding.  Struggling  a  good  while 
with  these  thoughts,  by  degrees  I  felt  myself  more 
firm.  I  derived,  at  length,  some  confidence  from 
what  in  other  circumstances  usually  produces  timid- 
ity. I  grew  less  anxious,  even  from  the  idea  of  my 
Own  insignificance.  For,  judging  of  what  you  are 
by  what  you  ought  to  be,  I  persuaded  myself  that  you 
would  not  reject  a  reasonable  proposition  because  it 
liad  nothing  but  its  reason  to  recommend  it.  On  the 
other  hand,  being  totally  destitute  of  all  shadow  of 
influence,  natural  or  adventitious,  I  was  very  sure, 
that,  if  my  proposition  were  futile  or  dangerous,  if 
it  were  weakly  conceived  or  improperly  timed,  there 
was  nothing  exterior  to  it  of  power  to  awe,  dazzle, 
or  delude  you.  You  will  see  it  just  as  it  is,  and  you 
will  treat  it  just  as  it  deserves. 

The  proposition  is  peace.     Not  peace  through  the 
medium  of  war  ;  not  peace  to  be  lumted  tlu-ougli  tlie 


106        SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA. 

labyrinth  of  intricate  and  endless  negotiations ;  not 
peace  to  arise  out  of  universal  discord,  fomented  from 
principle,  in  all  parts  of  the  empire ;  not  peace  to 
depend  on  the  juridical  determination  of  perplexing- 
questions,  or  the  precise  marking  the  shadowy  boun- 
daries of  a  complex  government.  It  is  simple  peace, 
sought  in  its  natural  course  and  in  its  ordinary  haunts. 
It  is  peace  sought  in  the  spirit  of  peace,  and  laid  in 
principles  purely  pacific.  I  propose,  by  removing  the 
ground  of  the  difference,  and  by  restoring  the  former 
unsuspecting  confidence  of  the  colonies  in  the  .mother 
country,  to  give  permanent  satisfaction  to  your  peo- 
ple, —  and  (far  from  a  scheme  of  rulhig  by  discord)  to 
reconcile  them  to  each  other  in  the  same  act  and  by 
the  bond  of  the  very  same  interest  which  reconciles 
them  to  British  government. 

My  idea  is  nothing  more.  Refined  policy  ever  has 
been  the  parent  of  confusion,  —  and  ever  will  be  so, 
as  long  as  the  world  endures.  Plain  good  intention, 
which  is  as  easily  discovered  at  the  first  view  as  fraud 
is  surely  detected  at  last,  is,  let  me  say,  of  no  mean 
force  in  the  government  of  mankind.  Genuine  sim- 
plicity of  heart  is  an  healing  and  cementing  principle. 
My  plan,  therefore,  being  formed  upon  the  most  sim- 
ple grounds  imaginable,  may  disappoint  some  people, 
when  they  hear  it.  It  has  nothing  to  recommend  it 
to  the  pruriency  of  curious  ears.  There  is  nothing 
at  all  new  and  captivating  in  it.  It  has  nothing  of 
the  splendor  of  the  project  which  has  been  lately  laid 
upon  your  table  by  the  noble  lord  in  the  blue  rib- 
and.*    It  does  not  propose  to  fill  your  lobby  with 

*  "  That  when  the  governor,  council,  and  assembly,  or  general 
court,  of  any  of  his  Majesty's  provinces  or  colonies  in  Amei-ica  shall 
propose  to  make  provision,  according  to  the  condition,  circumstances,  and 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA.        107 

squabbling  colony  agents,  who  will  require  the  inter- 
position of  your  mace  at  every  instant  to  keep  the 
peace  amongst  them.  It  does  not  institute  a  mag- 
nificent auction  of  finance,  where  captivated  provin- 
ces come  to  general  ransom  by  bidding  against  each 
other,  until  you  knock  down  the  hammer,  and  deter- 
mine a  proportion  of  payments  beyond  all  the  powers 
of  algebra  to  equalize  and  settle. 

The  plan  which  I  shall  presume  to  suggest  derives, 
however,  one  great  advantage  from  the  proposition 
and  registry  of  that  noble  lord's  project.  The  idea 
of  conciliation  is  admissible.  First,  the  House,  in  ac- 
cepting the  resolution  moved  by  the  noble  lord,  has 
admitted,  notwithstanding  the  menacing  front  of  our 
address,  notwithstanding  our  heavy  bill  of  pains  and 
penalties,  that  we  do  not  think  ourselves  precluded 
from  all  ideas  of  free  grace  and  bounty. 

The  House  has  gone  farther :  it  has  declared  con- 
ciliation admissible  previous  to  any  submission  on  the 
part  of  America.  It  has  even  shot  a  good  deal  be- 
yond that   mark,  and  has   admitted  that  the   com- 

situatlon  of  such  province  or  colony,  for  contributing  their  proportion 
to  the  common  defence,  (such  proportion  to  be  raised  under  the  authority 
of  the  general  court  or  general  assembly  of  such  province  or  colony, 
and  disposable  by  Parliament,)  and  shall  engage  to  make  provision 
also  for  the  support  of  the  civil  government  and  the  administration 
of  justice  in  such  province  or  colony,  it  will  be  proper,  if  such  proposal 
shall  be  approved  by  his  Majesty  and  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament,  and 
for  so  long  as  such  provision  shall  be  made  accordingly,  to  forbear, 
in  respect  of  such  province  or  colony,  to  levy  any  duty,  tax,  or  assess- 
ment, or  to  impose  any  farther  duty,  tax,  or  assessment,  except  only 
such  duties  as  it  may  be  expedient  to  continue  to  levy  or  to  impose 
■for  the  regulation  of  commerce:  the  net  produce  of  the  duties  last 
mentioned  to  be  carried  to  the  account  of  such  province  or  colony 
respectively."  —  Resolution  moved  by  Lord  North  in  the  Committee, 
and  agreed  to  by  the  House,  27th  JTcbruary,  1775. 


108         SPEECH   ON    CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA. 

plaints  of  our  former  mode  of  exerting  the  right  of 
taxation  were  not  wholly  unfounded..  That  right 
thus  exerted  is  allowed  to  have  had  something  rep- 
rehensible in  it,  —  something  unwise,  or  something 
grievous  ;  since,  in  the  midst  of  our  heat  and  resent- 
ment, we,  of  ourselves,  have  proposed  a  capital  al- 
teration, and,  in  order  to  get  rid  of  what  seemed  so 
very  exceptionable,  have  instituted  a  mode  that  is  al- 
together new, —  one  that  is,  indeed,  wholly  alien  from 
all  the  ancient  methods  and  forms  of  Parliament. 

The  principle  of  this  proceeding  is  large  enough  for 
my  purpose.  The  means  proposed  by  the  noble  lord 
for  carrying  his  ideas  into  execution,  I  think,  indeed, 
are  very  indifferently  suited  to  the  end ;  and  this  I 
shall  endeavor  to  show  you  before  I  sit  down.  But, 
for  the  present,  I  take  my  ground  on  the  admitted 
principle.  I  mean  to  give  peace.  Peace  implies  rec- 
onciliation ;  and  where  there  has  been  a  material  dis- 
pute, reconciliation  does  in  a  manner  always  imply 
concession  on  the  one  part  or  on  the  other.  In  this 
state  of  things  I  make  no  difficulty  in  affirming  that 
the  proposal  ought  to  originate  from  us.  Great  and 
acknowledged  force  is  not  impaired,  either  in  effect  or 
in  opinion,  by  an  unwillingness  to  exerj;  itself.  The 
superior  power  may  offer  peace  with  honor  and  with 
safety.  Such  an  offer  from  such  a  power  will  be  at- 
tributed to  magnanimity.  But  the  concessions  of  the 
weak  are  the  concessions  of  fear.  When  such  a  one 
is  disarmed,  he  is  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  his  superior ; 
and  he  loses  forever  that  time  and  those  chances 
which,  as  they  happen  to  all  men,  are  the  strength 
and  resources  of  all  inferior  power. 

The  capital  leading  questions  on  which  you  must 
this  day  decide    are  these  two :    First,  whether  you 


SPEECH   ON    CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.         109 

ought  to  concede ;  and  secondly,  what  your  conces- 
sion ought  to  be.  Oil  the  first  of  these  questions  we 
have  gained  (as  I  have  just  taken  the  liberty  of  ob- 
serving to  you)  some  ground.  But  I  am  sensible  that 
a  good  deal  more  is  still  to  be  done.  Indeed,  Sir,  to 
enable  iis  to  determine  both  on  the  one  and  the  other 
of  these  great  questions  with  a  firm  and  precise  judg- 
ment, I  think  it  may  be  necessary  to  consider  distinct- 
ly the  true  nature  and  the  peculiar  circumstances  of 
the  object  which  we  have  before  us  :  because,  after 
all  our  struggle,  whether  we  will  or  not,  we  must  gov- 
ern America  according  to  that  nature  and  to  those 
circumstances,  and  not  according  to  our  own  imagi- 
nations, not  according  to  abstract  ideas  of  right,  by 
no  means  according  to  mere  general  theories  of  gov- 
ernment, the  resort  to  which  appears  to  me,  in  our 
present  situation,  no  better  than  arrant  trifling.  I 
shall  therefore  endeavor,  with  your  leave,  to  lay  be- 
fore you  some  of  the  most  material  of  these  circum- 
stances in  as  full  and  as  clear  a  manner  as  I  am  able 
to  state  them. 

The  first  thing  that  we  have  to  consider  with  re- 
gard to  the  nature  of  the  object  is  the  number  of 
people  in  the  colonies.  I  have  taken  for  some  years 
a  good  deal  of  pains  on  that  point.  I  can  by  no  cal- 
culation justify  myself  in  placing  the  number  below 
two  millions  of  inhabitants  of  our  own  European  blood 
and  color,  —  besides  at  least  500,000  others,  who  form 
no  inconsiderable  part  of  the  strength  and  opulence 
of  the  whole.  This,  Sir,  is,  I  believe,  about  the  true 
number.  There  is  no  occasion  to  exaggerate,  where 
plain  truth  is  of  so  much  weight  and  importance. 
But  whether  I  put  the  present  numbers  too  higli  or 
too  low  is  a  matter  of  little  moment.     Such  is  the 


110         SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA. 

strength  with  which  population  shoots  in  that  part  of 
the  world,  that,  state  the  numbers  as  high  as  we  will, 
tv^hilst  the  dispute  continues,  the  exaggeration  ends. 
Whilst  we  are  discussing  any  given  magnitude,  they 
are  grown  to  it.  Whilst  we  spend  our  time  in  delib- 
erating on  the  mode  of  governing  two  millions,  we 
shall  find  we  have  millions  more  to  manage.  Your 
children  do  not  grow  faster  from  infancy  to  man- 
hood than  they  spread  from  families  to  communities, 
and  from  villages  to  nations. 

I  put  this  consideration  of  the  present  and  the 
growing  numbers  in  the  front  of  our  deliberation, 
because.  Sir,  this  consideration  will  make  it  evident 
to  a  blunter  discernment  than  yours,  that  no  partial, 
narrow,  contracted,  pinched,  occasional  system  will 
be  at  all  suitable  to  such  an  object.  It  will  show 
you  that  it  is  not  to  be  considered  as  one  of  those 
minima  which  are  out  of  the  eye  and  consideration 
of  the  law,  —  not  a  paltry  excrescence  of  the  state, — 
not  a  mean  dependant,  who  may  be  neglected  with  lit- 
tle damage  and  provoked  with  little  danger.  It  will 
prove  that  some  degree  of  care  and  caution  is  re- 
quired in  the  handling  such  an  object ;  it  will  show 
that  you  ought  not,  in  reason,  to  trifle  with  so  large 
a  mass  of  the  interests  and  feelings  of  the  human 
race.  You  could  at  no  time  do  so  without  guilt ; 
and  be  assured  you  will  not  be  able  to  do  it  long  with 
impunity. 

But  the  popiilation  of  this  country,  the  great  and 
growing  population,  tliougli  a  very  important  consid- 
eration, will  lose  much  of  its  weight,  if  not  combined 
with  other  circumstances.  The  commerce  of  your 
colonies  is  out  of  all  proportion  beyond  the  numbers 
of  the  people.     This  ground  of  their  commerce,  in- 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.         Ill 

deed,  has  been  trod  some  days  ago,  and  with  great 
ability,  by  a  distinguished  person,*  at  your  bar.  ' 
This  gentleman,  after  thirty-five  years,  —  it  is  so  long 
since  he  first  appeared  at  the  same  place  to  plead  for 
the  commerce  of  Great  Britain, — has  come  again  be- 
fore you  to  plead  the  same  cause,  without  any  other 
effect  of  time  than  that  to  the  fire  of  imagination 
and  extent  of  erudition,  which  even  then  marked 
him  as  one  of  the  first  literary  characters  of  his 
age,  he  has  added  a  consummate  knowledge  in  the 
commercial  interest  of  his  country,  formed  by  a 
long  course  of  enlightened  and  discriminating  expe- 
rience. 

Sir,  I  should  be  inexcusable  in  coming  after  such  a 
person  with  any  detail,  if  a  great  part  of  the  mem- 
bers who  now  fill  the  House  had  not  the  misfortune 
to  be  absent  when  he  appeared  at  your  bar.  Besides, 
Sir,  I  propose  to  take  the  matter  at  periods  of  time 
somewhat  different  from  his.  There  is,  if  I  mistake 
not,  a  point  of  view  from  whence,  if  you  will  look  at 
this  subject,  it  is  impossible  that  it  should  not  make 
an  impression  upon  you. 

I  have  in  my  hand  two  accounts :  one  a  compara- 
tive state  of  the  export  trade  of  England  to  its  colo- 
nies, as  it  stood  in  the  year  1704,  and  as  it  stood  in 
the  year  1772  ;  the  other  a  state  of  the  export 
trade  of  this  country  to  its  colonies  alone,  as  it  stood 
in  1772,  compared  with  the  whole  trade  of  England 
to  all  parts  of  the  world  (the  colonies  included)  in 
the  year  1704.  Tlicy  arc  from  good  vouclicrs :  the 
latter  period  from  the  accounts  on  your  table ;  the 
earlier  from  an  original  manuscript  of  Davenant, 
who  first  established  the  Inspector-General's  office, 

*  Mr.  Glover. 


112        SPEECH   ON  CONCILIATION  WITH  AMERICA. 

which  has  been  ever  since  his  time  so  abundant  a 
source  of  Parliamentary  information. 

Tlie  export  trade  to  tlie  colonies  consists  of  three 
great  branches :  the  African,  which,  terminating 
almost  wholly  in  the  colonies,  must  be  put  to  the  ac- 
count of  their  commerce ;  the  West  Indian ;  and  the 
North  American.  All  these  are  so  interwoven,  that 
the  attempt  to  separate  them  would  tear  to  pieces 
the  contextvire  of  the  whole,  and,  if  not  entirely  de- 
stroy, would  very  much  depreciate,  the  value  of  all 
the  jDarts.  I  therefore  consider  these  three  denomi- 
nations to  be,  what  in  effect  they  are,  one  trade. 

The  trade  to  the  colonies,  taken  on  the  export  side, 
at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  that  is,  in  the  year 
1704,  stood  thus :  — 

Exports  to  North  America  and  the  West 

Lidies X  483,265 

To  Africa 86,665 

£  669,930 

In  the  year  1772,  which  I  take  as  a  middle  year 
between  the  highest  and  lowest  of  those  lately  laid  on 
your  table,  the  account  was  as  follows :  — 

To  North  America  and  the  West  Indies    £  4,791,734 

To  Africa   . 866,398 

To  which  if  you  add  the  export  trade 

from  Scotland,  which  had  in  1704  no 

existence 364,000 

£  6,024,171 

JFrom  five  hundred  and  odd  thousand,  it  has  grown 
to  six  millions.  It  has  increased  no  less  than  twelve- 
fold.    This  is  the  state  of  the  colony  trade,  as  com- 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.         113 

pared  with  itself  at  these  two  periods,  within  this 
century  ;  —  and  this  is  matter  for  meditation.  But 
this  is  not  all.  Examine  my  second  account.  See 
how  the  export  trade  to  the  colonies  alone  in  1772 
stood  in  the  other  point  of  view,  that  is,  as  compared 
to  the  whole  trade  of  England  in  1704. 

The  whole  export  trade  of  England,  in- 
cluding that  to  the  colonies,  in  1704     £  6,509,000 
Export  to  the  colonies  alone,  in  1772   .         6,024,000 

Difference     ....        X  485,000 

The  trade  with  America  alone  is  now  within  less 
than  500,000^.  of  being  equal  to  what  this  great  com- 
mercial nation,  England,  carried  on  at  the  beginning 
of  this  century  with  the  whole  world  !  If  I  had  taken 
the  largest  year  of  those  on  your  table,  it  would  rather 
have  exceeded.  But,  it  will  be  said,  is  not  this  Amer- 
ican trade  an  unnatural  protuberance,  that  has  drawn 
the  juices  from  th<3  rest  of  the  body  ?  The  reverse. 
It  is  the  very  food  that  has  "nourished  every  other  part 
into  its  present  magnitude.  Our  general  trade  has 
been  greatly  augmented,  and  augmented  more  or 
less  in  almost  every  part  to  which  it  ever  extended, 
but  with  this  material  difference  :  that  of  the  six  mil- 
lions which  in  the  beginning  of  the  century  consti- 
tuted the  whole  mass  of  our  export  commerce  the 
colony  trade  was  but  one  twelfth  part ;  it  is  now  (as 
a  part  of  sixteen  millions)  considerably  more  than  a 
third  of  the  whole.  This  is  the  relative  proportion 
of  the  importance  of  the  colonies  at  these  two  peri- 
ods :  and  all  reasoning  concerning  our  mode  of  treat- 
ing them  must  have  this  proportion  as  its  basis,  or  it 
is  a  reasoning  weak,  rotten,  and  sophistical. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  cannot  prevail  on  myself  to  hui*ry 

VOL.  II.  8 


114         SPEECH   ON    CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA. 

over  this  great  consideration.  It  is  good  for  us  to  be 
here.  We  stand  where  we  have  an  immense  view  of 
what  is,  and  what  is  past.  Clouds  indeed,  and  dark- 
ness, rest  upon  the  future.  Let  us,  however,  before 
we  descend  from  this  noble  eminence,  reflect  that  this 
growth  of  our  national  prosperity  has  happened  with- 
in the  short  period  of  the  life  of  man.  It  has  hap- 
pened within  sixty-eight  years.  There  are  those  alive 
whose  memory  might  touch  the  two  extremities.  For 
instance,  my  Lord  Bathurst  might  remember  all  the 
stages  of  the  progress.  He  was  in  1704  of  an  age  at 
least  to  be  made  to  comprehend  such  things.  He  was 
then  old  enough  acta  parentum  jam  legere,  et  quce  sit 
poterit  cognoscere  virtus.  Suppose,  Sir,  that  the  angel 
of  this  auspicious  youth,  foreseeing  the  many  'virtues 
which  made  him  one  of  the  most  amiable,  as  he  is  one 
of  the  most  fortunate  men  of  his  age,  had  opened  to 
him  in  vision,  that,  when,  in  the  fourth  generation, 
the  third  prince  of  the  House  of  Brunswick  had  sat 
twelve  years  on  the  throne  of  that  nation  which  (by 
the  happy  issue  of  moderate  and  healing  councils) 
was  to  be  made  Great  Britain,  he  should  see  his  son, 
Lord  Chancellor  of  England,  turn  back  the  current 
of  hereditary  dignity  to  its  fountain,  and  raise  him 
to  an  higher  rank  of  peerage,  whilst  he  enriched  the 
family  with  a  new  one,  —  if,  amidst  these  bright  and 
happy  scenes  of  domestic  honor  and  prosperity,  that 
angel  should  have  drawn  up  the  curtain,  and  un- 
folded the  rising  glories  of  his  country,  and  whilst  he 
was  gazing  with  admiration  on  the  then  commercial 
grandeur  of  England,  the  genius  should  point  out 
to  him  a  little  speck,  scarce  visible  in  the  mass  of  the 
national  interest,  a  small  seminal  principle  rather 
than  a  formed  body,  and  should  tell  him,  —  "Young 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA.  115 

.nan,  there  is  America,  —  wliicli  at  this  day  serves  for 
little  more  than  to  amuse  you  with  stories  of  savage 
men  and  uncouth  manners,  yet  shall,  before  you 
taste  of  death,  show  itself  equal  to  the  whole  of  that 
commerce  wliich  now  attracts  the  envy  of  the  world. 
Whatever  England  has  been  growing  to  by  a  progres- 
sive increase  of  improvement,  brought  in  by  varieties 
of  people,  by  succession  of  civilizing  conquests  and 
civilizing  settlements  in  a  series  of  seventeen  hundred 
years,  you  shall  see  as  much  added  to  her  by  America 
in  the  course  of  a  single  life !  "  If  this  state  of  his 
country  had  been  foretold  to  him,  would  it  not  re- 
quire all  the  sanguine  credulity  of  youth,  and  all  the 
fervid  q-Iqw  of  enthusiasm,  to  make  him  believe  it  ? 
Fortunate  man,  he  has  lived  to  see  it !  Fortunate  in- 
deed, if  he  lives  to  see  nothing  that  shall  vary  the 
prospect,  and  cloud  the  setting  of  his  day ! 

Excuse  me.  Sir,  if,  turning  from  such  thoughts,  I 
resume  this  comparative  view  once  more.  You  have 
seen  it  on  a  large  scale  ;  look  at  it  on  a  small  one. 
I  will  point  out  to  your  attention  a  particular  in- 
stance of  it  in  the  single  province  of  Pennsylvania. 
In  the  year  1704,  that  province  called  for  11,459Z.  in 
value  of  your  commodities,  native  and  foreign.  This 
was  the  whole.  What  did  it  demand  in  1772  ?  Why, 
nearly  fifty  times  as  much ;  for  in  that  year  the  ex- 
port to  Pennsylvania  was  507,909Z.,  nearly  equal  to 
the  export  to  all  the  colonies  together  in  the  first 
period. 

I  choose,  Sir,  to  enter  into  these  minute  and  par- 
ticular details ;  because  generalities,  which  in  all 
other  cases  are  apt  to  heighten  and  raise  tlic  subject, 
have  here  a  tendency  to  sink  it.  When  we  speak  of 
the  commerce  with  our  colonies,  fiction  lags  after 


116         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA. 

truth,  invention  is  unfruitful,  and  imagination  cold 
and  barren.  v 

So  far,  Sir,  as  to  the  importance  of  the  object  in  the 
view  of  its  commerce,  as  concerned  in  the  exports 
from  England.  If  I  were  to  detail  the  imports,  I 
could  show  how  many  enjoyments  they  procure 
which  deceive  the  burden  of  life,  how  many  mate- 
rials wliich  invigorate  the  springs  of  national  indus- 
try and  extend  and  animate  every  part  of  our  foreign 
and  domestic  commerce.  This  would  be  a  curious 
subject  indeed,  —  but  I  must  prescribe  bounds  to  my- 
self in  a  matter  so  vast  and  various, 

I  pass, therefore,  to  the  colonies  in  another  point  of 
view,  —  their  agriculture.  This  they  have  prosecuted 
with  such  a  spirit,  that,  besides  feeding  plentifully 
their  own  growing  multitude,  their  annual  export  of 
grain,  comprehending  rice,  has  some  years  ago  ex- 
ceeded a  million  in  value.  Of  their  last  harvest,  I 
am  persuaded,  they  will  export  much  more.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  century  some  of  these  colonies  im- 
ported corn  from  the  mother  country.  For  some 
time  past  the  Old  World  has  been  fed  from  the  New. 
The  scarcity  which  you  have  felt  would  have  been 
a  desolating  famine,  if  this  child  of  your  old  age,  with 
a  true  filial  piety,  with  a  Roman  charity,  had  not 
put  the  full  breast  of  its  youthful  exuberance  to  the 
mouth  of  its  exhausted  parent. 

As  to  the  wealth  which  the  colonies  have  drawn 
from  the  sea  by  their  fisheries,  you  had  all  that  mat- 
ter fully  opened  at  your  bar.  You  surely  thought 
those  acquisitions  of  value,  for  they  seemed  even  to 
excite  your  envy ;  and  yet  the  spirit  by  which  that 
enterprising  employment  has  been  exercised  ought 
rather,  in  my  opinion,  to  have  raised  your  esteem  and 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA.         117 

ddmiration.  And  pray,  Sir,  what  in  the  world  is  equal 
to  it  ?  Pass  by  the  other  parts,  and  look  at  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  people  of  New  England  have  of  late 
carried  on  the  whale-fishery.  Whilst  we  follow  them 
among  the  tumbling  mountains  of  ice,  and  behold 
them  penetrating  into  the  deepest  frozen  recesses  of 
Hudson's  Bay  and  Davis's  Straits,  whilst  we  are  look- 
ing for  them  beneath  the  arctic  circle,  we  hear  that 
they  have  pierced  into  the  opposite  region  of  polar 
cold,  that  they  are  at  the  antipodes,  and  engaged 
under  the  frozen  serpent  of  the  South.  Falkland 
Island,  which  seemed  too  remote  and  romantic  an 
object  for  the  grasp  of  national  ambition,  is  but  a 
stage  and  resting-place  in  the  progress  of  their  victo- 
rious industry.  Nor  is  the  equinoctial  heat  more  dis- 
couraging to  them  than  the  accumulated  winter  of 
both  the  poles.  We  know,  that,  whilst  some  of  them 
draw  the  line  and  strike  the  harpoon  on  the  coast  of 
Africa,  others  run  the  longitude,  and  pursue  their 
gigantic  game  along  the  coast  of  Brazil.  No  sea  but 
what  is  vexed  by  their  fisheries.  No  climate  that  is 
not  witness  to  their  toils.  Neither  the  perseverance 
of  Holland,  nor  the  activity  of  France,  nor  the  dex- 
terous and  firm  sagacity  of  English  enterprise,  ever 
carried  this  most  perilous  mode  of  hardy  industry  to 
the  extent  to  which  it  has  been  pushed  by  this  recent 
people, —  a  })Cople  who  are  still,  as  it  were,  but  in  the 
gristle,  and  not  yet  hardened  into  the  bone  of  man- 
hood. When  I  contemplate  these  things, — when  I 
know  that  the  colonies  in  general  owe  little  or  noth- 
ing to  any  care  of  ours,  and  that  they  are  not  squeezed 
into  this  happy  form  by  the  constraints  of  watchful 
and  suspicious  government,  but  that,  throngli  a  wise 
and  salutary  neglect,  a  generous  nature  has  been  suf- 


118  SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH   AMERICA. 

fered  to  take  her  own  way  to  perfection,  —  when  I  re- 
flect upon  these  effects,  when  I  see  how  profitable 
they  have  been  to  us,  I  feel  all  the  pride  of  power 
sink,  and  all  presumption  in  the  wisdom  of  human 
contrivances  melt  and  die  away  within  mo,  —  my 
rigor  relents,  —  I  pardon  something  to  the  spirit  of 
liberty. 

I  am  sensible,  Sir,  that  all  which  I  have  asserted 
in  my  detail  is  admitted  in  the  gross,  but  that  quite 
a  different  conclusion  is  drawn  from  it.  America, 
gentlemen  say,  is  a  noble  object,  —  it  is  an  object  well 
worth  fighting  for.  Certainly  it  is,  if  fighting  a  peo- 
ple be  the  best  way  of  gaining  them.  Gentlemen  in 
this  respect  will  be  led  to  their  choice  of  means  by 
their  complexions  and  their  habits.  Those  who  un- 
derstand the  military  art  will  of  course  have  some 
predilection  for  it.  Those  who  wield  the  thunder  of 
the  state  may  have  more  confidence  in  the  efficacy  of 
arms.  But  I  confess,  possibly  for  want  of  this  knowl- 
edge, my  opinion  is  much  more  in  favor  of  prudent 
management  than  of  force,  —  considering  force  not  as 
an  odious,  but  a  feeble  instrument,  for  preserving  a 
people  so  numerous,  so  active,  so  growing,  so  spirited 
as  this,  in  a  profitable  and  subordinate  connection 
with  us. 

First,  Sir,  permit  me  to  observe,  that  the  use  of 
force  alone  is  but  temporary .  It  may  subdue  for  a 
moment ;  but  it  does  not  remove  the  necessity  of  sub- 
duing again  :  and  a  nation  is  not  governed  which  is 
perpetually  to  be  conquered. 

My  next  objection  is  its  uncertainty.  Terror  is  not 
always  the  effect  of  force,  and  an  armament  is  not  a 
victory.  If  you  do  not  succeed,  you  are  without  re- 
source :  for,  conciliation  failing,  force  remains ;  but, 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.         119 

force  failing,  no  further  hope  of  reconciliation  is  left. 
Power  and  authority  are  sometimes  bought  by  kind- 
ness ;  but  they  can  never  be  begged  as  alms  by  an 
impoverished  and  defeated  violence. 

A  further  objection  to  force  is,  that  you  impair  the 
object  by  your  very  endeavors  to  preserve  it.  The 
thing  you  fought  for  is  not  the  thing  which  you  re- 
cover, but  depreciated,  sunk,  wasted,  and  consumed  in 
the  contest.  Nothing  less  will  content  me  than  ivliole 
America.  I  do  not  choose  to  consume  its  strength 
along  with  our  own  ;  because  in  all  parts  it  is  the 
British  strength  that  I  consume.  I  do  not  choose  to 
be  caught  by  a  foreign  enemy  at  the  end  of  this  ex- 
hausting conflict,  and  still  less  in  the  midst  of  it.  I 
may  escape,  but  I  can  make  no  insurance  against 
such  an  event.  Let  me  add,  that  I  do  not  choose 
wholly  to  break  the  American  spirit ;  because  it  is  the 
spirit  that  has  made  the  country. 

Lastly,  we  have  no  sort  of  experience  in  favor  of 
force  as  an  instrument  in  the  rule  of  our  colonies. 
Their  growth  and  their  utility  has  been  owing  to 
methods  altogether  different.  Our  ancient  indulgence 
has  been  said  to  be  pursued  to  a  fault.  It  may  be  so ; 
but  we  know,  if  feeling  is  evidence,  that  our  fault  was 
more  tolerable  than  our  attempt  to  mend  it,  and  our 
sin  far  more  salutary  than  our  penitence. 

These,  Sir,  are  my  reasons  for  not  entertaining  that 
high  opinion  of  untried  force  by  which  many  gentle- 
men, for  whose  sentiments  in  other  particulars  I  have 
great  respect,  seem  to  be  so  greatly  captivated.  But 
there  is  still  behind  a  third  consideration  concerning 
this  object,  which  serves  to  determine  my  opinion  on 
the  sort  of  policy  which  ought  to  be  pursued  in  the 
management  of  America,  even  more  than  its  popula- 


120         SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA. 

tion  and  its  commerce :  I  mean  its  temper  and  cJiarao 
ter. 

In  this  character  of  the  Americans  a  love  of  free- 
dom is  the  predominating  featnre  which  marks  and 
disthiguishes  the  wliole :  and  as  an  ardent  is  always 
a  jealous  affection,  your  colonies  become  suspicious, 
restive,  and  untractable,  whenever  they  see  the  least 
attempt  to  wrest  from  them  by  force,  or  shuffle  from 
them  by  chicane,  what  they  think  the  only  advantage 
worth  living  for.  This  fierce  spirit  of  liberty  is 
stronger  in  the  English  colonies,  probably,  than  in  any 
other  people  of  the  earth,  and  this  from  a  great  vari- 
ety of  powerful  causes  ;  whicli,  to  understand  the 
true  temper  of  their  minds,  and  the  direction  which 
this  spirit  takes,  it  will  not  be  amiss  to  lay  open  some- 
what more  largely. 

First,  the  people  of  the  colonies  are  descendants  of 
Englishmen.  England,  Sir,  is  a  nation  which  still,  I 
hope,  respects,  and  formerly  adored,  her  freedom.  The 
colonists  emigrated  from  you  when  this  part  of  your 
character  was  most  predominant ;  and  they  took  this 
bias  and  direction  the  moment  they  parted  from  your 
hands.  They  are  therefore  not  only  devoted  to  lib- 
erty, but  to  liberty  according  to  English  ideas  and  on 
English  principles.  Abstract  liberty,  like  other  mere 
abstractions,  is  not  to  be  found.  Liberty  inheres  in 
some  sensible  object ;  and  every  nation  has  formed  to 
itself  some  favorite  point,  which  by  way  of  eminence 
becomes  the  criterion  of  their  happiness.  It  liap- 
pened,  you  know,  Sir,  tliat  the  great  contests  for  free- 
dom in  this  country  were  from  tlie  earliest  times 
chiefly  upon  the  question  of  taxing.  Most  of  the  con- 
tests in  the  ancient  commonwealtlis  turned  primarily 
on  the  right  of  election  of  magistrates,  or  on  the  bal- 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA.         121 

ance  among  the  several  orders  of  the  state.  The 
question  of  money  was  not  with  them  so  immediate. 
But  in  England  it  was  otherwise.  On  this  point  of 
taxes  the  ablest  pens  and  most  eloquent  tongues 
have  been  exercised,  the  greatest  spirits  have  acted 
and  suffered.  In  order  to  give  the  fullest  satisfaction 
concerning  the  importance  of  this  point,  it  was  not 
only  necessary  for  those  who  in  argument  defended 
the  excellence  of  the  English  Constitution  to  insist  on 
this  privilege  of  granting  money  as  a  dry  point  of  fact, 
and  to  prove  that  the  right  had  been  acknowledged 
in  ancient  parchments  and  blind  usages  to  reside  in 
a  certain  body  called  an  House  of  Commons  :  tliey 
went  much  further :  they  attempted  to  prove,  and 
they  succeeded,  that  in  theory  it  ought  to  be  so,  from 
the  particular  nature  of  a  House  of  Commons,  as  an 
immediate  representative  of  the  people,  wlicther  the 
old  records  had  delivered  this  oracle  or  not.  They 
took  infinite  pains  to  inculcate,  as  a  fundamental 
principle,  that  in  all  monarchies  the  people  must  in 
effect  themselves,  mediately  or  immediately,  possess 
the  power  of  granting  their  own  money,  or  no  shadow 
of  liberty  could  subsist.  The  colonies  draw  from  you, 
as  with  their  life-blood,  these  ideas  and  principles. 
Their  love  of  liberty,  as  with  you,  fixed  and  attached 
on  this  specific  point  of  taxing.  Liberty  might  be 
safe  or  might  be  endangered  in  twenty  other  particu- 
lars Avithout  their  being  much  pleased  or  alarmed. 
Here  they  felt  its  pulse  ;  and  as  they  found  that  beat, 
they  thought  themselves  sick  or  sound.  I  do  not  say 
whether  they  were  right  or  wrong  in  ai)plying  your 
general  arguments  to  their  own  case.  It  is  not  easy, 
indeed,  to  make  a  monopoly  of  theorems  and  corolla- 
ries.    The  fact  is,  tliat  tliey  did  thus  apply  tliose  gen- 


122         SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA. 

eral  arguments ;  and  your  mode  of  governing  tliem, 
whether  through  lenity  or  indolence,  through  wisdom 
or  mistake,  confirmed  them  in  the  imagination,  that 
they,  as  well  as  you,  had  an  interest  in  these  common 
principles. 

They  were  further  confirmed  in  this  pleasing  error 
by  the  form  of  their  provincial  legislative  assemblies. 
Their  governments  are  popular  in  an  high  degree : 
some  are  merely  popular ;  in  all,  tho  popular  repre- 
sentative is  the  most  weighty  ;  and  this  share  of  the 
people  in  their  ordinary  government  never  fails  to  in- 
spire them  with  lofty  sentiments,  and  with  a  strong 
aversion  from  whatever  tends  to  deprive  them  of  their 
chief  importance. 

If  anything  were  wanting  to  this  necessary  opera- 
tion of  the  form  of  government,  religion  would  have 
given  it  a  complete  effect.  Religion,  always  a  prin- 
ciple of  energy,  in  this  new  people  is  no  way  worn  out 
or  impaired ;  and  their  mode  of  professing  it  is  also 
one  main  cause  of  this  free  spirit.  The  people  are 
Protestants,  and  of  that  kind  which  is  the  most  ad- 
verse to  all  implicit  submission  of  mind  and  opinion. 
This  is  a'  persuasion  not  only  favorable  to  liberty,  but 
built  upon  it.  I  do  not  think,  Sir,  that  the  reason  of 
this  averseness  in  the  dissenting  churches  from  all 
that  looks  like  absolute  government  is  so  much  to  be 
sought  in  their  religious  tenets  as  in  their  history. 
Every  one  knows  that  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  is 
at  least  coeval  with  most  of  the  governments  where  it 
prevails,  that  it  has  generally  gone  hand  in  hand 
with  them,  and  received  great  favor  and  every  kind 
of  support  from  authority.  The  Church  of  England, 
too,  was  formed  from  her  cradle  under  the  nursing 
care  of  regular  government.     But  the  dissenting  in- 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.         123 

tcrests  have  sprung  up  in  direct  opposition  to  all  the 
ordinary  powers  of  the  world,  and  could  justify  that 
opposition  only  on  a  strong  claim  to  natural  liberty. 
Their  very  existence  depended  on  the  powerful  and 
unremitted  assertion  of  that  claim.  All  Protestant- 
ism, even  the  most  cold  and  passive,  is  a  sort  of  dis- 
sent. But  the  religion  most  prevalent  in  our  northern 
colonies  is  a  refinement  on  the  principle  of  resistance  : 
it  is  the  dissidence  of  dissent,  and  the  protestantism 
of  the  Protestant  religion.  This  religion,  under  a 
variety  of  denominations  agreeing  in  nothing  but  in 
the  communion  of  the  spirit  of  liberty,  is  predomi- 
nant in  most  of  the  northern  provinces,  where  the 
Church  of  England,  notwithstanding  its  legal  rights, 
is  in  reality  no  more  than  a  sort  of  private  sect,  not 
composing,  most  probably,  the  tenth  of  the  people. 
The  colonists  left  England  when  this  spirit  was  high, 
and  in  the  emigrants  was  the  highest  of  all ;  and  even 
that  stream  of  foreigners  which  has  been  constantly 
flowing  into  these  colonies  has,  for  the  greatest  part, 
been  composed  of  dissenters  from  the  establishments 
of  their  several  countries,  and  have  brought  witli  them 
a  temper  and  character  far  from  alien  to  that  of  the 
people  with  whom  they  mixed. 

Sir,  I  can  perceive,  by  their  manner,  that  some 
gentlemen  object  to  the  latitude  of  this  description, 
because  in  the  southern  colonies  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land forms  a  large  body,  and  has  a  regular  establish- 
ment. It  is  certainly  true.  There  is,  however,  a 
circumstance  attending  these  colonies,  which,  in  my 
opinion,  fully  counterbalances  this  difference,  and 
makes  the  spirit  of  liberty  still  more  high  and  haugli- 
ty  than  in  those  to  the  northward.  It  is,  tluit  in  Vir- 
ginia and  the  Carolinas  they  have  a  vast  multitude  of 


12-1         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA. 

slaves.  "Where  this  is  the  case  in  any  part  of'  the 
world,  those  who  are  free  are  by  far  the  most  proud 
and  jealous  of  their  freedom.  Freedom  is  to  them 
not  only  an  enjoyment,  but  a  kind  of  rank  and  pri^'i- 
lege.  Not  seeing  there,  that  freedom,  as  in  countries 
where  it  is  a  common  blessing,  and  as  broad  and  gen- 
eral as  the  air,  may  be  united  with  much  abject  toil, 
with  great  misery,  with  all  the  exterior  of  servitude, 
liberty  looks,  amongst  them,  like  something  that  is 
more  noble  and  liberal.  I  do  not  mean.  Sir,  to  com- 
mend the  superior  morality  of  this  sentiment,  which 
has  at  least  as  much  pride  as  virtue  in  it ;  but  I  can- 
not alter  the  nature  of  man.  The  fact  is  so  ;  and 
these  people  of  the  southern  colonies  are  much  more 
strongly,  and  with  an  higher  and  more  stubborn  spir 
it,  attached  to  liberty,  than  those  to  the  northward. 
Such  were  all  the  ancient  commonwealths  ;  such  were 
our  Gothic  ancestors ;  such  in  our  days  were  the 
Poles  ;  and  such  'will  be  all  masters  of  slaves,  who 
are  not  slaves  themselves.  In  such  a  people,  the 
haughtiness  of  domination  combines  with  the  spirit 
of  freedom^  fortifies  it,  and  renders  it  invincible. 

Permit  me.  Sir,  to  add  another  circumstance  in  our 
colonies,  which  contributes  no  mean  part  towards  the 
growth  and  effect  of  this  untractable  spirit :  I  mean 
their  education.  In  no  country,  perhaps,  in  the  world 
is  the  law  so  general  a  study.  The  profession  itself 
is  numerous  and  powerful,  and  in  most  provinces  it 
takes  the  lead.  The  greater  number  of  the  deputies 
sent  to  the  Congress  were  lawyers.  But  all  who  road, 
and  most  do  read,  endeavor  to  obtain  some  smattering 
in  that  science.  I  have  been  told  by  an  eminent 
bookseller,  that  in  no  branch  of  his  business,  after 
tracts  of  popular  devotion,  were  so  many  books  as 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.         125 

those  on  the  law  exported  to  the  plantations.  The 
colonists  have  now  fallen  into  the  way  of  printing 
them  for  their  own  use.  I  hear  that  they  have  sold 
nearly  as  many  of  Blackstone's  "  Commentaries  "  in 
America  as  in  England.  General  Gage  marks  out 
this  disposition  very  particularly  in  a  letter  on  your 
table.  He  states,  that  all  the  people  in  his  govern- 
ment are  lawyers,  or  smatterers  in  law,  —  and  tliat  in 
Boston  they  have  been  enabled,  by  successful  chicane, 
wholly  to  evade  many  parts  of  one  of  your  capital  pe 
nal  constitutions.  The  smartness  of  debate  will  say, 
that  this  knowledge  ought  to  teach  them  more  clearly 
the  rights  of  legislature,  their  obligations  to  obedience, 
and  the  penalties  of  rebellion.  All  this  is  mighty  well. 
But  my  honorable  and  learned  friend  *  on  the  floor, 
who  condescends  to  mark  what  I  say  for  animad- 
version, will  disdain  that  ground.  He  has  heard,  as 
well  as  I,  that,  when  great  honors  and  great  emolu- 
ments do  not  win  over  this  knowleelge  to  the  service 
of  the  state,  it  is  a  formidable  adversary  to  govern- 
ment. If  the  spirit  be  not  tamed  and  broken  by  these 
happy  methods,  it  is  stubborn  and  litigious.  Abeunt 
studia  in  mores.  This  study  renders  men  acute,  in- 
quisitive, dexterous,  prompt  in  attack,  ready  in  de- 
fence, full  of  resources.  In  other  countries,  the  peo- 
ple, more  simple,  and  of  a  less  mercurial  cast,  judge  of 
an  ill  principle  in  government  only  by  an  actual  griev- 
ance ;  here  they  anticipate  the  evil,  and  judge  of  the 
pressure  of  the  grievance  by  the  badness  of  the  prin- 
ciple. They  augur  misgovernment  at  a  distance,  and 
snuff  the  approach  of  tyranny  in  every  tainted  breeze. 
The  last  cause  of  this  disobedient  spirit  in  the  colo- 
nics v..  hardly  less  powerful  than  th(  rest,  as  it  is  not 

*  The  Attorney-General. 


12G         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA. 

merely  moral,  but  laid  deep  in  the  natural  constitu' 
tion  of  things.  Three  thousand  miles  of  ocean  lie  be- 
tween you  and  them.  No  contrivance  can  prevent 
the  effect  of  this  distance  in  wealcening  government. 
Seas  roll,  and  months  pass,  between  the  order  and  the 
execution  ;  and  the  want  of  a  speedy  explanation  of 
a  single  point  is  enough  to  defeat  an  whole  system. 
You  have,  indeed,  winged  ministers  of  vengeance, 
who  carry  your  bolts  in  their  pounces  to  the  remotest 
verge  of  the  sea :  but  there  a  power  steps  in,  that 
limits  the  arrogance  of  raging  passions  and  furious 
elements,  and  says,  "  So  far  shalt  thou  go,  and  no 
farther."  Who  are  you,  that  should  fret  and  rage, 
and  bite  the  chains  of  Nature?  Nothing  worse  hap- 
pens to  you  than  does  to  all  nations  who  have  exten- 
sive empire ;  and  it  happens  in  all  the  forms  into  which 
empire  can  be  thrown.  In  large  bodies,  the  circula- 
tion of  power  must  be  less  vigorous  at  the  extrem- 
ities. Nature  has.  said  it.  The  Turk  cannot  govern 
Egypt,  and  Arabia,  and  Kurdistan,  as  he  governs 
Thrace ;  nor  has  he  the  same  dominion  in  Crimea 
and  Algiers  which  he  has  at  Brusa  and  Smyrna. 
Despotism  itself  is  obliged  to  truck  and  huckster. 
The  Sidtan  gets  sucli  obedience  as  he  can.  He  gov 
erns  with  a  loose  rein,  that  he  may  govern  at  all ; 
and  the  whole  of  the  force  and  vigor  of  his  authority 
in  his  centre  is  derived  from  a  prudent  relaxation  in 
all  his  borders.  Spain,  in  her  provinces,  is  perhaps 
not  so  well  obeyed  as  you  are  in  yours.  She  com- 
plies, too ;  she  submits  ;  she  watches  times.  This  is 
the  immutable  condition,  the  eternal  law,  of  extensive 
and  detached  empire. 

Then,  Sir,  from  these  six  capital  sources,  of  de- 
scent,  of  form   of  government,  of  religion  in  the 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.        127 

nortliern  provinces,  of  manners  in  the  southern,  of 
education,  of  the  remoteness  of  situation  from  the 
first  mover  of  government,  —  from  all  these  causes  a 
fierce  spirit  of  liberty  has  grown  up.  It  has  grown 
with  the  growth  of  the  people  in  your  colonies,  and 
increased  with  the  increase  of  their  wealth  :  a  spirit, 
that,  unhappily  meeting  with  an  exercise  of  power  in 
England,  which,  however  lawful,  is  not  reconcilable 
to  any  ideas  of  liberty,  much  less  with  theirs,  has  kin- 
dled this  flame  that  is  ready  to  consume  us. 

I  do  not  mean  to  commend  either  the  spirit  in  this 
excess,  or  the  moral  causes  which  produce  it.  Per- 
haps a  more  smooth  and  accommodating  spirit  of 
freedom  in  them  would  be  more  acceptable  to  us. 
Perhaps  ideas  of  liberty  might  be  desired  more  rec- 
oncilable with  an  arbitrary  and  boundless  authority. 
Perhaps  we  might  wish  the  colonists  to  be  persuaded 
that  their  liberty  is  more  secure  when  held  in  trust 
for  them  by  us  (as  their  guardians  during  a  perpet- 
ual minority)  than  with  any  part  of  it  in  their  own 
hands.  But  the  question  is  not,  whether  their  spirit 
deserves  praise  or  blame,  —  what,  in  the  name  of  God, 
shall  we  do  with  it  ?  You  have  before  you  the  ob- 
ject, such  as  it  is,  —  with  all  its  glories,  with  all  its 
imperfections  on  its  head.  You  see  the  magnitude, 
the  importance,  the  temper,  the  habits,  the  disor- 
ders. By  all  these  considerations  we  are  strongly 
urged  to  determine  something  concerning  it.  We 
are  called  upon  to  fix  some  rule  and  line  for  our  fu- 
ture conduct,  which  may  give  a  little  stability  to  our 
politics,  and  prevent  the  return  of  such  unhappy  de- 
liberations as  the  present.  Every  such  return  will 
bring  the  matter  before  us  in  a  still  more  untractable 
form.     For  what  astonishing  and  incredible  things 


128         SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA. 

have  we  not  seen  already!  What  monsters  have 
not  been  generated  from  this  unnatural  contention ! 
Whilst  every  principle  of  aiithority  and  resistance 
has  been  pushed,  iipon  both  sides,  as  far  as  it  would 
go,  there  is  nothing  so  solid  and  certain,  either  in 
reasoning  or  in  practice,  that  has  not  been  shaken. 
Until  very  lately,  all  authority  in  America  seemed  to 
be  nothing  but  an  emanation  from  yours.  Even  the 
popular  part  of  the  colony  constitution  derived  all  its 
activity,  and  its  first  vital  movement,  from  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  crown.  We  thought,  Sir,  that  the  utmost 
which  the  discontented  colonists  could  do  was  to  dis- 
turb authority  ;  we  never  dreamt  they  could  of  them- 
selves supply  it,  knowing  in  general  what  an  operose 
business  it  is  to  establish  a  government  absolutely 
new.  But  having,  for  our  purposes  in  this  conten- 
tion, resolved  that  none  but  an  obedient  assembly 
should  sit,  the  humors  of  the  people  there,  finding  all 
passage  through  the  legal  channel  stopped,  with  great 
violence  broke  out  another  way.  Some  provinces 
have  tried  their  experiment,  as  we  have  tried  ours  ; 
and  theirs  has  succeeded.  Tliey  have  formed  a  gov- 
ernment sufficient  for  its  purposes,  without  the  bus- 
tle of  a  revolution,  or  the  troublesome  formality  of  an 
election.  Evident  necessity  and  tacit  consent  have 
done  the  business  in  an  instant.  So  well  they  have 
done  it,  that  Lord  Dunmore  (the  account  is  among 
the  fragments  on  your  table)  tells  you  that  the  new 
mstitution  is  infinitely  better  obeyed  than  the  ancient 
government  ever  was  in  its  most  fortunate  periods. 
Obedience  is  what  makes  government,  and  not  the 
names  by  which  it  is  called  :  not  the  name  of  Gov- 
ernor, as  formerly,  or  Committee,  as  at  present.  This 
new  government  has  originated  directly  from  the  peo- 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA.         129 

pie,  and  was  not  transmitted  tlirougli  any  of  the 
ordinary  artificial  media  of  a  positive  constitution. 
It  was  not  a  manufacture  ready  formed,  and  trans- 
mitted to  them  in  that  condition  from  England.  The 
evil  arising  from  hence  is  this :  that  the  colonists 
having  once  found  the  possibility  of  enjoying  the 
advantages  of  order  in  the  midst  of  a  struggle  for 
liberty,  such  struggles  will  not  henceforward  seem 
so  terrible  to  the  settled  and  sober  part  of  mankind 
as  they  had  appeared  before  the  trial. 

Pursuing  the  same  plan  of  punishing  by  the  denial 
of  the  exercise  of  government  to  still  greater  lengths, 
we  wholly  abrogated  the  ancient  government  of  Mas- 
sachusetts. We  were  confident  that  the  first  feeling, 
if  not  the  very  prospect  of  anarchy,  would  instantly 
enforce  a  complete  submission.  The  experiment  was 
tried.  A  new,  strange,  unexpected  face  of  things  ap- 
peared. Anarchy  is  found  tolerable.  A  vast  prov- 
ince has  now  subsisted,  and  subsisted  in  a  considera- 
ble degree  of  health  and  vigor,  for  near  a  twelvemonth, 
without  governor,  without  public  council,  without 
judges,  without  executive  magistrates.  How  long  it 
will  continue  in  this  state,  or  what  may  arise  out  of 
this  unheard-of  situation,  how  can  the  wisest  of  us 
conjecture  ?  Our  late  experience  has  taught  us  that 
many  of  those  fundamental  principles  formerly  be- 
lieved infalliljle  are  either  not  of  the  importance  they 
were  imagined  to  he,  or  that  wo  have  not  at  all  ad- 
verted to  some  other  far  more  important  and  far 
more  powerful  principles  which  entirely  overrule 
those  we  had  considered  as  omnipotent.  I  am  much 
against  any#further  experiments  which  tend  to  put 
to  the  proof  any  more  of  these  allowed  opinions  which 
contribute  so  much  to  the  public  tranquillity.     In 

VOL.  II.  9 


130         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA. 

effect,  we  suffer  as  much  at  home  by  tins  loosening 
of  all  tics,  and  this  concussion  of  all  established  opin- 
ions, as  we  do  abroad.  For,  in  order  to  prove  that 
the  Americans  have  no  right  to  their  liberties,  we  are 
every  day  endeavoring  to  subvert  the  maxims  which 
preserve  tlie  whole  spirit  of  our  own.  To  prove  that 
the  Americans  ought  not  to  be  free,  we  are  obliged  to 
depreciate  the  value  of  freedom  itself;  and  we  never 
seem  to  gain  a  paltry  advantage  over  them  in  debate, 
without  attacking  some  of  those  principles,  or  deriding 
some  of  those  feelings,  for  which  our  ancestors  have 
shed  their  blood. 

B\it,  Sir,  in  wishing  to  put  an  end  to  pernicious  ex- 
periments, I  do  not  mean  to  preclude  the  fullest  in- 
quiry. Far  from  it.  Far  from  deciding  on  a  sudden 
or  partial  view,  I  would  patiently  go  round  and  round 
the  subject,  and  survey  it  minutely  in  every  possible 
aspect.  Sir,  if  I  were  capable  of  engaging  you  to  an 
equal  attention,  I  would  state,  that,  as  for  as  I  am 
capable  of  discerning,  there  are  but  three  ways  of  pro- 
ceeding relative  to  this  stubborn  spirit  which  pre- 
vails in  your  colonies  and  disturbs  your  government. 
These  are,  —  to  change  that  spirit,  as  inconvenient, 
by  removing  the  causes,  —  to  prosecute  it,  as  crimi- 
nal,—  or  to  comply  with  it,  as  necessary.  I  would 
not  be  guilty  of  an  imperfect  enumeration ;  I  can 
think  of  but  these  three.  Another  has,  indeed,  been 
started,  —  that  of  giving  up  the  colonies;  but  it  met 
so  slight  a  reception  that  I  do  not  think  myself  obliged 
to  dwell  a  great  while  upon  it.  It  is  nothing  but  a 
little  sally  of  anger,  like  the  frowardness  of  peevish 
children,  who,  when  they  cannot  get  al]^  they  would 
have,  are  resolved  to  take  nothing. 

The  first  of  these  plans  —  to  change  the  spirit,  as  in- 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.         131 

convenient,  by  removing  the  causes  —  I  think  is  the 
most  like  a  systematic  proceeding.  It  is  radical  in  its 
principle ;  but  it  is  attended  with  great  difficulties : 
some  of  them  little  short,  as  I  conceive,  of  impossibili- 
ties. This  will  appear  by  examining  into  the  plans 
which  have  been  proposed. 

As  the  growing  population  of  the  colonies  is  evi- 
dently one  cause  of  their  resistance,  it  was  last  session 
mentioned  in  both  Houses,  by  men  of  weight,  and  re- 
ceived not  without  applause,  that,  in  order  to  check 
this  evil,  it  would  be  proper  for  the  crown  to  make  no 
further  grants  of  land.  But  to  this  scheme  there  are 
two  objections.  The  first,  that  there  is  already  so 
much  unsettled  land  in'  private  hands  as  to  afford 
room  for  an  immense  future  population,  although  the 
crown  not  only  withheld  its  grants,  but  annihilated 
its  soil.  If  this  be  the  case,  then  the  only  effect  of 
this  avarice  of  desolation,  this  hoarding  of  a  royal 
wilderness,  would  be  to  raise  the  value  of  the  posses- 
sions in  the  hands  of  the  great  private  monopolists, 
without  any  adequate  check  to  the  growing  and 
alarming  mischief  of  population. 

But  if  you  stopped  your  grants,  what  would  be  the 
consequence  ?  The  people  would  occupy  without 
grants.  They  have  already  so  occupied  in  many 
places.  You  cannot  station  garrisons  in  every  part 
of  these  deserts.  If  you  drive  the  people  from  one 
place,  they  will  carry  on  their  annual  tillage,  and  re- 
move with  their  flocks  and  herds  to  anotlier.  Many 
of  the  people  in  the  back  settlements  are  already  little 
attached  to  particular  situations.  Already  they  have 
topped  the  Appalachian  mountains.  From  thence  they 
behold  before  them  an  immense  plain,  one  vast,  rich, 
level  meadow  :  a  square  of  five  Inindrcd  miles.     Over 


182         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA. 

this  they  would  wander  without  a  possibility  of  re- 
straint ;  they  would  change  their  manners  with  the 
habits  of  their  life  ;  would  soon  forget  a  government 
by  which  they  were  disowned ;  would  become  hordes 
of  English  Tartars,  and,  pouring  down  upon  your 
unfortified  frontiers  a  fierce  and  irresistible  cavalry, 
become  masters  of  your  governors  and  your  counsel- 
lors, your  collectors  and  comptrollers,  and  of  all  the 
slaves  that  adhered  to  them.  Such  would,  and,  in  no 
long  time,  must  be,  the  effect  of  attempting  to  forbid 
as  a  crime,  and  to  suppress  as  an  evil,  the  command 
and  blessing  of  Providence,  "  Increase  and  multiply." 
Such  would  be  the  happy  result  of  an  endeavor  to 
keep  as  a  lair  of  wild  beasts  that  earth  which  God 
by  an  express  charter  has  given  to  the  children  of 
men.  Far  different,  and  surely  much  wiser,  has  been 
our  policy  hitherto.  Hitherto  we  have  invited  our 
people,  by  every  kind  of  bounty,  to  fixed  establish- 
ments. We  have  invited  the  husbandman  to  look  to 
authority  for  his  title.  We  have  taught  him  piously 
to  believe  in  the  mysterious  virtue  of  wax  and  parch- 
ment. We  have  thrown  each  tract  of  land,  as  it  was 
peopled,  into  districts,  that  the  ruling  power  should 
never  be  wholly  out  of  sight.  We  have  settled  all  we 
could ;  and  we  have  carefully  attended  every  settle- 
ment with  government. 

Adhering,  Sir,  as  I  do,  to  this  policy,  as  well  as  for 
the  reasons  I  have  just  given,  I  think  this  new  pro- 
ject of  hedging  in  population  to  be  neither  prudent 
nor  practicable. 

To  impoverish  the  colonies  in  general,  and  in  par- 
ticular to  arrest  the  noble  course  of  their  marine 
enterprises,  would  be  a  more  easy  task.  I  freely  con- 
fess it.     We  have  shown  a  disposition  to  a  system  of 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    ^VITH    AMERICA.  133 

this  kind,  —  a  disposition  even  to  continiie  the  re- 
straint after  the  offence,  —  looking  on  ourselves  as  ri- 
vals to  our  colonies,  and  persuaded  that  of  course  we 
must  gain  all  that  they  shall  lose.  Much  mischief  we 
may  certainly  do.  The  power  inadequate  to  all  other 
thiuQ-s  is  often  more  than  sufficient  for  this.  I  do 
not  look  on  the  direct  and  immediate  power  of  the 
colonies  to  resist  our  violence  as  very  formidable.  In 
this,  however,  I  may  be  mistaken.  But  when  I  con- 
sider that  we  have  colonies  for  no  purpose  but  to  be 
serviceable  to  us,  it  seems  to  my  poor  understanding 
a  little  preposterous  to  make  them  unserviceable,  in 
order  to  keep  them  obedient.  It  is,  in  truth,  nothing 
more  than  the  old,  and,  as  I  thought,  exploded  prob- 
lem of  tyranny,  which  proposes  to  beggar  its  siibjects 
into  submission.  But  remember,  when  you  have 
completed  your  system  of  impoverishment,  that  Na- 
ture still  proceeds  in  her  ordinary  course  ;  that  dis- 
content will  increase  with  misery  ;  and  that  there  are 
critical  moments  in  the  fortune  of  all  states,  when 
they  who  are  too  weak  to  contribute  to  -your  prosper 
ity  may  be  strong  enough  to  complete  your  ruin. 
Spoliatis  arma  supersunt. 

The  temper  and  character  which  prevail  in  our  col- 
onies are,  I  am  afraid,  unalterable  by  any  human  art. 
We  cannot,  I  fear,  falsify  the  pedigree  of  this  fierce 
people,  and  persuade  them  that  they  are  not  sprung 
from  a  nation  in  whose  veins  the  blood  of  freedom 
circulates.  The  language  in  which  they  would  hear 
you  tell  them  this  talc  would  detect  the  imposition  ; 
your  speech  would  betray  you.  An  Englishman  is 
tlie  unfittest  person  on  earth  to  argue  another  Eng- 
lislnuan  into  slavery. 

I  think  it  is  nearly  as  little  in  our  power  to  change 


134         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA. 

their  republican  religion  as  their  free  descent,  or  to 
substitute  the  Roman  Catholic  as  a  penalty,  or  the 
Church  of  England  as  an  improvement.  The  mode 
of  inquisition  and  dragooning  is  going  out  of  fashion 
in  the  Old  World,  and  I  should  not  confide  much  to 
their  efficacy  in  the  New.  The  education  of  the 
Americans  is  also  on  the  same  unalterable  boctom 
with  their  religion.  You  cannot  persuade  them  to 
burn  their  books  of  curious  science,  to  banish  their 
lawyers  from  their  courts  of  law,  or  to  quench  the 
lights  of  their  assemblies  by  refusing  to  choose  those 
persons  who  are  best  read  in  their  privileges.  It 
would  be  no  less  impracticable  to  think  of  wholly  an- 
nihilating the  popular  assemblies  in  which  these  law- 
yers sit.  The  army,  by  which  we  must  govern  in 
their  place,  would  be  far  more  chargeable  to  us,  not 
quite  so  effectual,  and  perhaps,  in  the  end,  full  as 
difficnlt  to  be  kept  in  obedience. 

With  regard  to  the  high  aristocratic  spirit  of  Vir- 
ginia and  the  southern  colonies,  it  has  been  proposed, 
I  know,  to  reduce  it  by  declaring  a  general  enfran- 
chisement of  their  slaves.  This  project  has  had  its 
advocates  and  panegyrists ;  yet  I  never  could  argue 
myself  into  any  opinion  of  it.  Slaves  are  often  much 
attached  to  their  masters.  A  general  wild  offer  of 
liberty  would  not  always  be  accepted.  History  fur- 
nishes few  instances  of  it.  It  is  sometimes  as  hard 
to  persuade  slaves  to  be  free  as  it  is  to  compel  free- 
men to  be  slaves ;  and  in  this  auspicious  scheme  we 
should  have  both  these  pleasing  tasks  on  our  hands 
at  once.  But  when  we  talk  of  enfranchisement,  do 
we  not  perceive  that  the  American  master  may  en- 
franchise, too,  and  arm  servile  hands  in  defence  of 
freedom? — a  measure  to  which  other  people  have 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA.         135 

had  recourse  more  than  once,  and  not  without  suc- 
cess, in  a  desperate  situation  of  their  affairs. 

Shaves  as  these  unfortunate  black  people  are,  and 
dull  as  all  men  are  from  slavery,  must  they  not  a 
little  suspect  the  offer  of  freedom  from  that  very  na^ 
tion  which  has  sold  them  to  their  present  masters, — 
from  that  nation,  one  of  whose  causes  of  quarrel 
with  those  masters  is  their  refusal  to  deal  any  more 
in  that  inhuman  traffic  ?  An  offer  of  ft-eedom  from 
England  would  come  rather  oddly,  shipped  to  them 
in  an  African  vessel,  which  is  refused  an  entry  into 
the  ports  of  Virginia  or  Carolina,  with  a  cargo  of 
three  hundred  Angola  negroes.  It  would  be  curious 
to  see  the  Guinea  captain  attempting  at  the  same  in- 
stant to  publish  his  proclamation  of  liberty  and  to 
advertise  his  sale  of  slaves. 

But  let  us  suppose  all  these  moral  difficulties  got 
over.  The  ocean  remains.  You  cannot  pump  this 
dry  ;  and  as  long  as  it  continues  in  its  present  bed, 
so  long  all  the  causes  which  weaken  authority  by  dis- 
tance will  continue. 

"  Yc  Gods  !  annihilate  but  space  and  time, 
And  make  two  lovers  happy," 

was  a  pious  and  passionate  prayer,  —  but  just  as  rea- 
sonable as  many  of  the  serious  wishes  of  very  grave 
and  solemn  politicians. 

If,  then,  Sir,  it  seems  almost  desperate  to  think  of 
any  alterative  course  for  changing  the  moral  causes 
(and  not  quite  easy  to  remove  the  natural)  which 
produce  prejudices  irreconcilable  to  the  late  exorcise 
of  our  authority,  but  that  tlie  spirit  iifallibly  will 
continue,  and,  continuing,  will  produce  such  effects 
as  now  embarrass  us,  —  the  second  mode  under  con- 
sideration is,  to  prosecute  that  spirit  in  its  overt  acts, 
as  o'lminal. 


136         SPEECH   ON    CONCILIATION    WITH   AMERICA. 

At  this  proposition  I  must  pause  a  moment.  The 
thing  seems  a  great  deal  too  big  for  my  ideas  of  juris- 
prudence. It  should  seem,  to  my  way  of  conceiving 
such  matters,  that  there  is  a  very  wide  difference,  in 
reason  and  policy,  between  the  mode  of  proceeding 
on  the  irregular  conduct  of  scattered  individuals,  or 
even  of  bands  of  men,  who  disturb  order  within  the 
state,  and  the  civil  dissensions  which  may,  from  time 
to  time,  on  great  questions,  agitate  the  several  com- 
munities which  compose  a  great  empire.  It  looks  to 
me  to  be  narrow  and  pedantic  to  apply  the  ordinary 
ideas  of  criminal  justice  to  this  great  public  contest. 
I  do  not  know  the  method  of  drawing  up  an  indict- 
ment against  an  whole  people.  I  cannot  insult  and 
ridicule  the  feelings  of  millions  of  my  fellow-crea- 
tures as  Sir  Edward  Coke  insulted  one  excellent  in- 
dividual (Sir  Walter  Raleigh)  at  the  bar.  I  am  not 
ripe  to  pass  sentence  on  the  gravest  public  bodies, 
intrusted  with  magistracies  of  great  authority  and 
dignity,  and  charged  with  the  safety  of  their  fellow- 
citizens,  upon  the  very  same  title  that  I  am.  I  really 
think  that  for  wise  men  this  is  not  judicious,  for 
sober  men  not  decent,  for  minds  tinctured  with 
humanity  not  mild  and  merciful. 

Perhaps,  Sir,  I  am  mistaken  in  my  idea  of  an  em- 
pire, as  distinguished  from  a  single  state  or  kingdom. 
But  my  idea  of  it  is  this  :  that  an  empire  is  the  ag- 
gregate of  many  states  under  one  common  head, 
whetlier  this  head  be  a  monarch  or  a  presiding  re- 
public. It  does,  in  such  constitutions,  frequently 
happen  (and  nothing  but  the  dismal,  cold,  dead  uni- 
formity of  servitude  can  prevent  its  happening)  that 
the  subordinate  parts  have  many  local  privileges  and 
immunities.      Between  these  privileges  and  the  su- 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILfATION   WITH   AMERICA.         137 

premc  common  authority  the  line  may  be  extremely 
nice.  Of  course  disputes,  often,  too,  very  bitter  dis- 
putes, and  much  ill  blood,  will  arise.  But  though 
every  privilege  is  an  exemption  (in  the  case)  from 
the  ordinary  exercise  of  the  supreme  authority,  it 
is  no  denial  of  it.  The  claim  of  a  privilege  seems 
rather,  ex  vi  termini,  to  imply  a  superior  power :  for 
to  talk  of  the  privileges  of  a  state  or  of  a  person  who 
has  no  superior  is  hardly  any  better  than  speaking 
nonsense.  Now  in  such  unfortunate  quarrels  among 
the  component  parts  of  a  great  political  union  of  com- 
munities, I  can  scarcely  conceive  anything  more  com- 
pletely imprudent  tlian  for  the  head  of  the  empire  to 
insist,  that  if  any  privilege  is  pleaded  against  his  will 
or  his  acts,  that  his  whole  authority  is  denied,  —  in- 
stantly to  proclaim  rebellion,  to  beat  to  arms,  and  to 
put  the  offending  provinces  under  the  ban.  Will  not 
this,  Sir,  very  soon  teach  the  provinces  to  make  no 
distinctions  on  their  part  ?  Will  it  not  teach  them 
that  the  government  against  which  a  claim  of  liberty 
is  tantamount  to  high  treason  is  a  government  to 
which  submission  is  equivalent  to  slavery  ?  It  may 
not  always  be  quite  convenient  to  impress  dependent 
communities  with  such  an  idea. 

We  are,  indeed,  in  all  disputes  with  the  colonies, 
by  the  necessity  of  things,  the  judge.  It  is  true,  Sir. 
But  I  confess  that  the  character  of  judge  in  my  own 
cause  is  a  thing  that  frightens  me.  Instead  of  iillhig 
me  with  pride,  I  am  exceedingly  humbled  by  it.  I 
cannot  proceed  with  a  stern,  assured  judicial  confi- 
dence, until  I  find  myself  in  something  more  like  a 
judicial  cliaracter.  I  must  have  these  hesitations  as 
long  as  I  am  compelled  to  recollect,  that,  in  my  little 
reading  upon  such  contests  as  these,  the  sense  of 


138  SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA. 

mankind  has  at  least  as  often  decided  against  the 
superior  as  the  subordinate  power.  Sir,  let  me  add, 
too,  that  the  opinion  of  my  having  some  abstract 
riglit  in  my  favor  would  not  put  me  much  at  my 
ease  in  passing  sentence,  unless  I  could  be  sure  that 
there  were  no  rights  which,  in  their  exercise  under 
certain  circumstances,  were  not  the  most  odious  of 
all  wrongs  and  the  most  vexatious  of  all  injustice. 
Sir,  these  considerations  have  great  weight  with  me, 
when  I  find  things  so  circumstanced  that  I  see  the 
same  party  at  once  a  civil  litigant  against  me  in  a 
point  of  right  and  a  culprit  before  me,  while  I  sit  as 
criminal  jiidge  on  acts  of  his  whose  moral  quality 
is  to  be  decided  upon  the  merits  of  that  very  litiga- 
tion. Men  are  every  now  and  then  put,  by  the  com- 
plexity of  human  affairs,  into  strange  situations  ;  but 
justice  is  the  same,  let  the  judge  be  in  what  situation 
he  will. 

There  is.  Sir,  also  a  circumstance  which  convinces 
me  that  this  mode  of  criminal  proceeding  is  not  (at 
least  in  the  present  stage  of  our  contest)  altogether 
expedient,  —  which  is  nothing  less  than  the  conduct 
of  those  very  persons  who  have  seemed  to  adopt  that 
mode,  by  lately  declaring  a  rebellion  in  Massachusetts 
Bay,  as  they  had  formerly  addressed  to  have  traitors 
brought  hither,  under  an  act  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  for 
trial.  For,  though  rebellion  is  declared,  it  is  not  pro- 
ceeded against  as  such  ;  nor  have  any  steps  been 
taken  towards  the  apprehension  or  conviction  of  any 
individual  offender,  either  on  our  late  or  our  former 
address  ;  but  modes  of  public  coercion  have  been 
adopted,  and  such  as  have  much  more  resemblance 
to  a  sort  of  qualified  hostility  towards  an  independent 
power  than  the  punishment  of  rebellious  subjects. 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    AVITH    AMERICA.         139 

All  this  seems  rather  inconsistent ;  but  it  shows  how 
difficult  it  is  to  apply  these  juridical  ideas  to  our  pres- 
ent case. 

In  this  situation,  let  us  seriously  and  coolly  ponder. 
What  is  it  we  have  got  by  all  our  menaces,  which 
have  been  many  and  ferocious  ?  What  advantage 
have  we  derived  from  the  penal  laws  we  have  passed, 
and  which,  for  the  time,  have  been  severe  and  numer- 
ous ?  AVhat  advances  have  we  made  towards  our  ob- 
ject, by  the  sending  of  a  force,  which,  by  land  and 
sea,  is  no  contemptible  strength  ?  Has  the  disorder 
abated  ?  Nothing  less.  —  When  I  see  things  in  this 
situation,  after  such  confident  hopes,  bold  promises, 
and  active  exertions,  I  cannot,  for  my  life,  avoid  a 
suspicion  that  the  plan  itself  is  not  correctly  riglit. 

If,  then,  the  removal  of  the  causes  of  this  spirit  of 
American  liberty  be,  for  the  greater  part,  or  rather 
entirely,  impracticable,  -^  if  the  ideas  of  criminal  pro- 
cess be  inapplicable,  or,  if  applicable,  are  in  the  high- 
est degree  inexpedient,  what  way  yet  remains  ?  No 
way  is  open,  but  the  third  and  last,  —  to  comply  with 
the  American  spirit  as  necessary,  or,  if  you  please,  to 
submit  to  it  as  a  necessary  evil. 

If  we  adopt  this  mode,  if  we  mean  to  conciliate  and 
concede,  let  us  see  of  what  nature  the  concession 
ought  to  be.  To  ascertain  the  nature  of  our  conces- 
sion, we  must  look  at  their  complaint.  The  colonies 
complain  that  they  have  not  the  characteristic  mark 
and  seal  of  British  freedom.  They  complain  that 
they  are  taxed  in  a  Parliament  in  which  they  are  not 
represented.  If  you  mean  to  satisfy  them  at  all,  you 
must  satisfy  them  with  regard  to  this  complaint.  If 
you  mean  to  please  any  people,  you  must  give  them 
the  boon  which  they  ask,  —  not  what  you  may  think 


140        SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA. 

better  for  them,  but  of  a  kind  totally  different.     Such 
an  act  may  be  a  wise  regulation,  but  it  is  no  conces- 
sion ;  whereas  our  present  tlieme  is  the  mode  of  giv 
ing  satisfaction. 

Sir,  I  think  you  must  perceive  that  I  am  resolved 
this  day  to  have  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  the  question 
of  the  right  of  taxation.  Some  gentlemen  startle,  — 
but  it  is  true  :  I  put  it  totally  out  of  the  question. 
It  is  less  than  nothing  in  my  consideration.  I  do 
not  indeed'  wonder,  nor  will  you,  Sir,  that  gentlemen 
of  profound  learning  arc  fond  of  displayuig  it  on  this 
profound  subject.  But  my  consideration  is  narrow, 
confined,  and  wholly  limited  to  the  policy  of  the  ques- 
tion. I  do  not  examine  whether  the  giving  away  a 
man's  money  be  a  power  excepted  and  reserved  out 
of  the  general  trust  of  government,  and  how  far  all 
mankind,  in  all  forms  of  polity,  are  entitled  to  an 
exercise  of  that  right  by  the  charter  of  Nature,  —  or 
whether,  on  the  contrary,  a  right  of  taxation  is  neces- 
sarily involved  in  the  general  principle  of  legislation, 
and  inseparable  from  the  ordinary  supreme  power. 
These  are  deep  questions,  where  great  names  militate 
against  each  other,  where  reason  is  perplexed,  and 
an  appeal  to  authorities  only  thickens  the  confusion : 
for  high  and  reverend  authorities  lift  up  their  heads 
on  both  sides,  and  there  is  no  sure  footing  in  the 
middle.  This  point  is  the  c/reat  Serhonian  hog,  be- 
twixt Dayniata  and  llount  Casius  old,  tvhere  armies 
whole  have  sunk.  I  do  not  intend  to  be  overwhelmed 
in  that  bog,  though  in  such  respectable  company. 
The  question  with  me  is,  not  whether  you  have  a 
right  to  render  your  people  miserable,  but  whether 
it  is  not  your  interest  to  make  them  happy.  It  is 
not  what  a  lawyer  tells  me  I  ma?/  do,  but  what  hu- 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.        141 

manitj,  reason,  and  justice  tell  me  I  ought  to  do. 
Is  a  politic  act  the  worse  for  being  a  generous  one  ? 
Is  no  concession  proper,  but  that  which  is  made  from 
your  want  of  riglit  to  keep  what  you  grant  ?  Or  does 
it  lessen  the  grace  or  dignity  of  relaxing  in  the  exer- 
cise of  an  odious  claim,  because  you  have  your  evi- 
dence-room full  of  titles,  and  your  magazines  stuffed 
with  arms  to  enforce  them  ?  What  signify  all  tliose 
titles  and  all  those  arms  ?  Of  what  avail  are  they, 
when  the  reason  of  the  thing  tells  me  that  the  asser- 
tion of  my  title  is  the  loss  of  my  suit,  and  that  I 
could  do  nothing  but  wound  myself  by  the  use  of  my 
own  weapons  ? 

Such  is  steadfastly  my  opinion  of  the  absolute  ne- 
cessity of  keeping  up  the  concord  of  this  empire  by  a 
unity  of  spirit,  though  in  a  diversity  of  operations, 
that,  if  I  were  sure  the  colonists  had,  at  their  leaving 
this  country,  sealed  a  regular  compact  of  servitude, 
that  they  had  solemnly  abjured  all  tlie  rights  of  citi- 
zens, that  they  had  made  a  vow  to  renounce  all  ideas 
of  liberty  for  them  and  their  posterity  to  all  genera- 
tions, yet  I  should  hold  myself  obliged  to  conform  to 
the  temper  I  found  universally  prevalent  in  my  own 
day,  and  to  govern  two  million  of  men,  impatient  of 
servitude,  on  the  principles  of  freedom.  I  am  not  de- 
termining a  point  of  law  ;  I  am  restoring  tranquillity  ; 
and  the  general  character  and  situation  of  a  people 
must  determine  what  sort  of  government  is  fitted  for 
them.  That  point  nothhig  else  can  or  ought  to  de- 
termine. 

My  idea,  therefore,  without  considering  whether 
we  yield  as  matter  of  right  or  grant  as  matter  of 
favor,  is,  to  admit  the  2Jsople  of  our  colonies  into  an  in- 
terest in  the  Constitution,    and,  by  recording  that  ad- 


142        SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA. 

mission  in  the  journals  of  Parliament,  to  give  tliem 
as  strong  an  assurance  as  the  nature  of  the  thing  will 
admit  that  we  mean  forever  to  adhere  to  that  solemn 
declaration  of  systematic  indulgence. 

Some  years  ago,  the  repeal  of  a  revenue  act,  upon 
its  imderstood  princij^le,  might  have  served  to  show 
that  we  intended  an  unconditional  abatement  of  the 
exercise  of  a  taxing  power.  Such  a  measure  was 
then  sufficient  to  remove  all  suspicion  and  to  give 
perfect  content.  But  unfortnnate  events  since  that 
time  may  make  something  further  necessary,  —  and 
not  more  necessary  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  colonies 
than  for  the  dignity  and  consistency  of  our  own  fu- 
ture proceedings. 

I  have  taken  a  very  incorrect  measure  of  the  dis- 
position of  the  House,  if  this  proposal  in  itself  would 
be  received  with  dislike.  I  think,  Sir,  we  have  few 
American  financiers.  But  our  misfortune  is,  we  are 
too  acute,  we  are  too  exquisite  in  our  conjectures  of 
the  future,  for  men  oppressed  with  such  great  and 
present  evils.  The  more  moderate  among  the  oppos- 
ers  of  Parliamentary  concession  freely  confess  that 
they  hope  no  good  from  taxation  ;  but  they  appre- 
hend tlie  colonists  have  further  views,  and  if  this 
point  were  conceded,  they  would  instantly  attack  the 
trade  laws.  These  gentlemen  are  convinced  that  this 
was  the  intention  from  the  beginning,  and  the  quar- 
rel of  the  Americans  with  taxation  was  no  more  than 
a  cloak  and  cover  to  this  design.  Such  has  been  the 
language  even  of  a  gentleman  *  of  real  moderation, 
and  of  a  natural  temper  well  adjusted  to  fair  and 
equal  government.  I  am,  however,  Sir,  not  a  little 
surprised  at  this  kind  of  disconrse,  whenever  I  hear 

*  Mr.  Eice. 


SPEECH   ON    CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.  143 

it ;  and  I  am  the  more  surprised  on  account  of  the 
arguments  which  I  constantly  find  in  company  with 
it,  and  which  are  often  urged  from  the  same  mouths 
and  on  the  same  day. 

For  instance,  when  we  allege  that  it  is  against  rea- 
son to  tax  a  people  under  so  many  restraints  in  trade 
as  the  Americans,  the  noble  lord  *  in  the  blue  riband 
shall  tell  you  that  the  restraints  on  trade  are  futile 
and  useless,  of  no  advantage  to  us,  and  of  no  burden 
to  those  on  whom  they  are  imposed,  —  that  the  trade 
to  America  is  not  secured  by  the  Acts  of  Navigation, 
but  by  the  natural  and  irresistible  advantage  of  a 
commercial  preference. 

Such  is  the  merit  of  the  trade  laws  in  this  posture 
of  the  debate.  But  when  strong  internal  circumstan- 
ces are  urged  against  the  taxes,  —  when  the  scheme 
is  dissected,  —  when  experience  and  the  nature  of 
things  are  brought  to  prove,  and  do  prove,  the  utter 
impossibility  of  obtaining  an  effective  revenue  from 
the  colonies,  —  when  these  things  are  pressed,  or 
rather  press  themselves,  so  as  to  drive  the  advocates 
of  colony  taxes  to  a  clear  admission  of  the  futility  of 
the  scheme, —  then.  Sir,  the  sleeping  trade  laws  re- 
vive from  their  trance,  and  this  useless  taxation  is  to 
be  kept  sacred,  not  for  its  own  sake,  but  as  a  counter- 
g-uard  and  security  of  the  laws  of  trade. 

Then,  Sir,  you  keep  \vp  revenue  laws  which  are 
mischievous  in  order  to  preserve  trade  laws  that  are 
useless.  Such  is  the  wisdom  of  our  plan  in  both 
its  members.  They  are  separately  given  up  as  of  no 
value ;  and  yet  one  is  always  to  be  defended  for  the 
sake  of  the  other.  But  I  cannot  agree  with  the  noble 
lord,  nor  with  the  pamphlet  from  whence  he  seems  to 

*  Lord  North. 


144        SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION  "WITH   AMERICA. 

have  borrowed  these  ideas  concerning  the  imitility  of 
the  trade  laws.  For,  without  idolizing  them,  I  am 
sure  they  are  still,  in  many  ways,  of  great  use  to  us ; 
and  in  former  times  they  have  been  of  the  greatest. 
They  do  confine,  and  they  do  greatly  narrow,  the 
market  for  the  Americans.  But  my  perfect  convic- 
tion of  this  does  not  help  me  in  the  least  to  discern 
how  the  revenue  laws  form  any  security  whatsoever 
to  the  commercial  regulations,  —  or  that  these  com- 
mercial regulations  are  the  true  ground  of  the  quar- 
rel,—  or  that  the  giving  way,  in  any  one  instance,  of 
authority  is  to  lose  all  that  may  remain  unconceded. 
One  fact  is  clear  and  indisputable :  the  public  and 
avowed  origin  of  this  quarrel  was  on  taxation.  This 
quarrel  has,  indeed,  brought  on  new  disputes  on  new 
questions,  but  certainly  the  least  bitter,  and  the  few- 
est of  all,  on  the  trade  laws.  To  judge  which  of  the 
two  be  the  real,  radical  cause  of  quarrel,  we  have  to 
see  whether  the  commercial  dispute  did,  in  order  of 
time,  precede  the  dispute  on  taxation.  There  is  not 
a  shadow  of  evidence  for  it.  Next,  to  enable  us  to 
judge  whether  at  this  moment  a  dislike  to  the  trade 
laws  be  the  real  cause  of  quarrel,  it  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  put  the  taxes  out  of  the  question  by  a  repeal. 
See  how  the  Americans  act  in  this  position,  and  then 
you  will  be  able  to  discern  correctly  what  is  the  true 
object  of  the  controversy,  or  whether  any  controversy 
at  all  will  remain.  Unless  you  consent  to  remove 
this  cause  of  difference,  it  is  impossible,  with  decency, 
to  assert  that  the  dispute  is  not  upon  what  it  is  avowed 
to  be.  And  I  would.  Sir,  recommend  to  your  serious 
consideration,  whether  it  be  prudent  to  form  a  rule 
for  punishing  people,  not  on  their  own  acts,  but  on 
your  conjectures.     Surely  it  is  preposterous,  at  the 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.       145 

very  best.  It  is  not  justifying  your  anger  by  their 
misconduct,  but  it  is  converting  your  ill-will  into 
their  delinquency. 

But  the  colonics  will  go  further. — Alas!  alas!  when 
will  this  speculating  against  fact  and  reason  end? 
What  will  quiet  these  panic  fears  which  we  entertain 
of  the  hostile  effect  of  a  conciliatory  conduct  ?  Is  it 
true  that  no  case  can  exist  in  which  it  is  proper  for 
the  sovereign  to  accede  to  the  desires  of  his  discon- 
tented subjects  ?  Is  there  anything  peculiar  in  this 
case,  to  make  a  rule  for  itself?  Is  all  authority  of 
course  lost,  when  it  is  not  pushed  to  the  extreme  ? 
Is  it  a  certain  maxim,  that,  the  fewer  causes  of  dis- 
satisftiction  are  left  by  government,  the  more  the  sub- 
ject will  bo  inclined  to  resist  and  rebel  ? 

All  these  objections  being  in  fact  no  more  than  sus- 
picions, conjectures,  divinations,  formed  in  defiance 
of  fact  and  experience,  they  did  not,  Sir,  discourage 
me  from  entertaining  the  idea  of  a  conciliatory  con- 
cession, founded  on  the  principles  which  I  have  just 
stated. 

In  forming  a  plan  for  this  purpose,  I  endeavored 
to  put  myself  in  that  frame  of  mind  which  was  the 
most  natural  and  the  most  reasonable,  and  which 
was  certainly  the  most  probable  means  of  securing 
me  from  all  error.  I  set  out  with  a  perfect  distrust 
of  my  own  abilities,  a  total  renunciation  of  every 
speculation  of  my  own,  and  with  a  profound  rever- 
ence for  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors,  who  have  left 
us  the  inheritance  of  so  happy  a  Constitution  and  so 
flourishing  an  empire,  and,  what  is  a  thousand  times 
more  valuable,  the  treasury  of  the  maxims  and  prin- 
ciples which  formed  the  one  and  obtained  the  other. 

During  the  reigns  of  tbc  kings  of  Spain  of  the  Aus- 

VOL.    II.  10 


146       SPEECH   ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    .AMERICA. 

trian  family,  "whenever  they  were  at  a  loss  in  the 
Spanish  councils,  it  was  common  for  their  statesmen 
to  say  that  they  ought  to  consult  the  genius  of  Pliilip 
the  Second.  The  genius  of  Philip  the  Second  miglit 
mislead  them ;  and  the  issue  of  their  affairs  showed 
til  at  they  had  not  chosen  the  most  perfect  standard. 
But,  Sir,  I  am  sure  that  I  shall  not  be  misled,  when,  in 
a  case  of  constitutional  difficulty,  I  consult  the  genius 
of  the  English  Constitution.  Consulting  at  that  oracle, 
(it  was  with  all  due  humility  and  piety,)  I  found  four 
capital  examples  in  a  similar  case  before  me :  those 
of  Ireland,  Wales,  Chester,  and  Durham. 

Ireland,  before  the  English  conquest,  though  never 
governed  by  a  despotic  power,  had  no  Parliament. 
How  far  the  English-  Parliament  itself  was  at  that 
time  modelled  according  to  the  present  form  is  dis- 
puted among  antiquarians.  But  we  have  all  the  rea- 
son in  the  world  to  be  assured,  that  a  form  of  Parlia- 
ment, such  as  England  then  enjoyed,  she  instantly 
communicated  to  Ireland ;  and  we  are  equally  sure 
that  almost  every  successive  improvement  in  consti- 
tutional liberty,  as  fast  as  it  was  made  here,  was  trans- 
mitted thither.  The  feudal  baronage,  and  the  feudal 
knighthood,  the  roots  of  our  primitive  Constitution, 
were  early  transplanted  into  that  soil,  and  grew  and 
flourished  there.  Magna  Charta,  if  it  did  not  give 
us  originally  the  House  of  Commons,  gave  us  at  least 
an  House  of  Commons  of  weight  and  consequence. 
But  your  ancestors  did  not  churlishly  sit  down  alone 
to  tlie  feast  of  Magna  Charta.  Ireland  was  made 
immediately  a  partaker.  This  benefit  of  English  la-ws 
and  liberties,  I  confess,  was  not  at  first  extended  to 
all  Ireland.  Mark  the  consequence.  English  au- 
thority and   English  liberty  had   exactly   the   same 


SPEECH   ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA.         147 

boundaries.  Your  standard  could  never  be  advanced 
an  inch  before  your  privileges.  Sir  John  Davies  shows 
beyond  a  doubt,  that  the  refusal  of  a  general  commu- 
nication of  these  rights  was  the  true  cause  why  Ireland 
was  five  hundred  years  in  subduing ;  and  after  the 
vain  projects  of  a  military  government,  attempted  in 
the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  it  was  soon  discovered 
that  nothing  could  make  that  country  English,  in 
civility  and  allegiance,  but  your  laws  and  your  forms 
of  legislature.  It  was  not  English  arms,  but  the  Eng- 
lish Constitution,  that  conquered  Ireland.  From  that 
time,  Ireland  has  ever  had  a  general  Parliament,  as 
she  had  before  a  partial  Parliament.  You  changed 
the  people,  you  altered  the  religion,  but  you  never 
touched  the  form  or  the  vital  substance  of  free  gov- 
ernment in  that  kingdom.  You  deposed  kings  ;  you 
restored  tliem ;  you  altered  the  succession  to  theirs, 
as  well  as  to  your  own  crown  ;  but  you  never  altered 
their  Constitution,  the  principle  of  which  was  re- 
spected l)y  usurpation,  restored  with  the  restoration 
of  monarchy,  and  established,  I  trust,  forever  by  the 
glorious  Revolution.  This  has  made  Ireland  the  great 
and  flourishing  kingdom  that  it  is,  and,  from  a  dis- 
grace and  a  burden  intolerable  to  this  nation,  has 
rendered*  her  a  principal  part  of  our  strength  and 
ornament.  Tbis  country  cannot  be  said  to  have  ever 
formally  taxed  her.  Tlie  irregular  things  done  in 
the  confusion  of  mighty  troubles,  and  on  the  hinge 
of  great  revolutions,  even  if  all  were  done  that  is  said 
to  have  been  done,  form  no  example.  If  tliey  have 
any  effect  in  argument,  they  make  an  exception  to 
prove  the  rule.  None  of  your  own  liberties  coidd 
stand  a  moment,  if  the  casual  deviations  from  them, 
at  such  times,  were  suffered  to  be  used  as  proofs  of 


148        SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITil    AMERICA. 

their  nullity.  By  the  lucrative  amount  of  such  cas- 
ual breaches  in  the  Constitution,  judge  what  the  stat- 
ed and  fixed  rule  of  supply  has  been  in  that  king- 
dom. Your  Irish  pensioners  would  starve,  if  they 
had  no  other  fund  to  live  on  than  taxes  granted  by 
English  authority.  Turn  your  eyes  to  those  popular 
grants  from  whence  all  your  great  supplies  are  come, 
and  learn  to  respect  that  only  source  of  public  wealth 
in  the  British  empire. 

My  next  example  is  "Wales.  This  country  was  said 
to  be  reduced  by  Henry  the  Third.  It  was  said  more 
truly  to  be  so  by  Edward  the  First.  But  though  then 
conquered,  it  was  not  looked  upon  as  any  part  of  the 
realm  of  England.  Its  old  Constitution,  whatever 
that  might  have  been,  was  destroyed  ;  and  no  good 
one  was  substituted  in  its  place.  The  care  of  that 
tract  was  put  into  the  hands  of  Lords  Marchers : 
a  form  of  government  of  a  very  singular  kind;  a 
strange,  heterogeneous  monster,  something  between 
hostility  and  government :  perhaps  it  has  a  sort  of  re- 
semblance, according  to  the  modes  of  those  times,  to 
that  of  commander-in-chief  at  present,  to  whom  all 
civil  power  is  granted  as  secondary.  The  manners  of 
the  Welsh  nation  followed  the  genius  of  the  govern- 
ment :  the  people  were  ferocious,  restive,  savage,  and 
uncultivated ;  sometimes  composed,  never  pacified. 
Wales,  within  itself,  was  in  perpetual  disorder ;  and  it 
kept  the  frontier  of  England  in  perpetual  alarm.  Ben- 
efits from  it  to  the  state  there  were  none,  Wales  was 
only  known  to  England  by  incursion  and  invasion. 

Sir,  during  that  state  of  things,  Parliament  was  not 
idle.  They  attempted  to  subdue  the  fierce  spirit  of 
the  Welsh  by  all  sorts  of  rigorous  laws.  They  pro- 
hibited by  statute  the  sending  all  sorts  of  arms  into 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA.  l49 

Wales,  as  yon  prohibit  by  proclamation  (with  some- 
thing more  of  donbt  on  the  legality)  the  sending  arms 
to  America.  They  disarmed  the  Welsh  by  statnte, 
as  you  attempted  (bnt  still  with  more  question  on  the 
legality)  to  disarm  New  England  by  an  instruction. 
They  made  an  act  to  drag  offenders  from  Wales  into 
England  for  trial,  as  you  have  done  (but  with  more 
hardship)  with  regard  to  America.  By  another  act, 
where  one  of  the  parties  was  an  Englishman,  they  or- 
dained that  his  trial  should  be  always  by  English. 
They  made  acts  to  restrain  trade,  as  you  do  ;  and 
they  prevented  the  Welsh  from  the  use  of  fairs  and 
markets,  as  you  do  the  Americans  from  fisheries  and 
foreign  ports.  In  short,  when  the  statute-book  was 
not  quite  so  much  swelled  as  it  is  now,  you  find  no 
less  than  fifteen  acts  of  penal  regulation  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Wales. 

Here  we  rub  our  hands,  —  A  fine  body  of  prece- 
dents for  the  authority  of  Parliament  and  the  use  of 
it !  —  I  admit  it  fully  ;  and  pray  add  likewise  to  these 
precedents,  that  all  the  while  Wales  rid  this  kingdom 
like  an  incuhus  ;  that  it  was  an  unprofitable  and  op- 
pressive burden  ;  and  that  an  Englishman  travelling 
in  that  country  could  not  go  six  yards  from  the  high- 
road without  being  murdered. 

The  march  of  the  human  mind  is  slow.  Sir,  it  was 
not  until  after  two  hundred  years  discovered,  that, 
by  an  eternal  law,  Providence  had  decreed  vexation 
to  violence,  and  iK)V(;rty  to  rapine.  Your  ancestors 
didjhowevcr,  at  length  open  their  eyes  to  the  ill  hus- 
bandry of  injustice.  They  found  that  the  tyranny  of 
a  free  people  could  of  all  tyrannies  the  least  be  en- 
dured, and  that  laws  made  against  an  whole  nation 
were  not  the  most  effectual  methods  for  securing  its 


150  SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA. 

obedience.  Accordingly,  in  the  twenty-seventh  year 
of  Henry  the  Eighth  the  course  was  entirely  altered. 
With  a  preamble  stating  the  entire  and  perfect  rights 
of  the  crown  of  England,  it  gave  to  the  Welsh  all  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  English  subjects.  A  political 
order  was  established ;  the  military  power  gave  way 
to  the  civil :  the  marches  were  turned  into  counties. 
But  that  a  nation  siiould  have  a  right  to  English  lib- 
erties, and  yet  no  share  at  all  in  the  fundamental 
security  of  these  liberties,  —  the  grant  of  their  own 
property,  —  seemed  a  thing  so  incongruous,  that  eight 
years  after,  that  is,  in  the  thirty-fifth  of  that  reign,  a 
complete  and  not  ill-proportioned  representation  by 
counties  and  boroughs  was  bestowed  upon  Wales  by 
act  of  Parliament.  From  that  moment,  as  by  a  charm, 
the  tumults  subsided  ;  obedience  was  restored  ;  peace, 
order,  and  civilization  followed  in  the  train  of  liberty. 
When  the  day-star  of  the  English  Constitution  had 
arisen  in  their  hearts,  all  was  harmony  within  and 
•without :  — 

Simul  alba  nautis 

Stella  refulsit, 
Defluit  saxis  agitatus  humor, 
Concidunt  vcnti,  fugiuntquc  nubcs, 
Et  minax  (quod  sic  volucrc)  ponto 

Uuda  rccumbit. 

The  very  same  year  the  County  Palatine  of  Chester 
received  the  same  relief  from  its  oppressions,  and  the 
same  remedy  to  its  disorders.  Before  this  time  Ches- 
ter was  little  less  distempered  than  Wales.  The  in- 
habitants, without  rights  themselves,  were  the  fittest 
to  destroy  the  rights  of  others  ;  and  from  thence  Rich- 
ard the  Second  drew  the  standing  army  of  archers 
with  which  for  a  time  he  oppressed  England.     The 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH   AMERICA.  151 

people  of  Chester  applied  to  Parliament  in  a  petition 
penned  as  I  shall  read  to  you. 

"  To  the  king  our  sovereign  lord,  in  most  humble 
wise  shown  unto  your  most  excellent  Majesty,  the  in- 
habitants of  your  Grace's  County  Palatine  of  Ches- 
ter:  That  where  the  said  County  Palatine  of  Chester 
is  and  hath  been  alway  hitherto  exempt,  excluded, 
and  separated  out  and  from  your  high  court  of  Par- 
liament, to  have  any  knights  and  burgesses  within  the 
said  court ;  by  reason  whereof  the  said  inhabitants 
have  hitherto  sustained  manifold  disherisons,  losses, 
and  damages,  as  well  in  their  lands,  goods,  and  bod- 
ies, as  in  the  good,  civil,  and  politic  governance  and 
maintenance  of  the  common  wealth  of  their  said  coun- 
tiy :  And  forasmuch  as  the  said  inhabitants  have 
always  hitherto  been  bound  by  the  acts  and  statutes 
made  and  ordained  by  your  said  Highness,  and  your 
most  noble  progenitors,  by  authority  of  the  said  court, 
as  far  forth  as  other  counties,  cities,  and  boroughs 
have  been,  that  have  had  their  knights  and  burgesses 
within  your  said  court  of  Parliament,  and  yet  have 
had  neither  knight  ne  burgess  there  for  the  said 
County  Palatine  ;  the  said  inhabitants,  for  lack  there- 
of, have  been  oftentimes  touched  and  grieved  with  acts 
and  statutes  made  within  the  said  court,  as  well  de- 
rogatory unto  the  most  ancient  jurisdictions,  liberties, 
and  privileges  of  your  said  County  Palatine,  as  preju- 
dicial unto  the  common  wealth,  quietness,  rest,  and 
peace  of  your  Grace's  most  bounden  subjects  inhab- 
iting within  the  same." 

AVhat  did  Parliament  with  this  audacious  address  ? 
—  Reject  it  as  a  libel  ?  Treat  it  as  an  affront  to  gov- 
ernment? Spurn  it  as  a  derogation  from  the  rights 
of  legislature  ?     Did  they  toss  it  over  the  table  ?    Did 


1C2        SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA. 

they  burn  it  by  the  hands  of  the  common  hangman  ? 
—  They  took  the  petition  of  grievance,  all  rugged  as 
it  was,  without  softening  or  temperament,  unpiirged 
of  the  original  bitterness  and  indignation  of  com- 
plaint ;  they  made  it  the  very  preamble  to  their  act 
of  redress,  and  consecrated  its  principle  to  all  ages 
in  the  sanctuary  of  legislation. 

Here  is  my  third  example.  It  was  attended  with 
the  success  of  tlie  two  former,  Chester,  civilized  as 
well  as  Wales,  has  demonstrated  that  freedom,  and 
not  servitude,  is  the  cure  of  anarchy  ;  as  religion,  and 
not  atheism,  is  the  true  remedy  for  superstition.  Sir, 
this  pattern  of  Chester  was  followed  in  the  reign  of 
Cliarles  the  Second  with  regard  to  the  County  Pala- 
tine of  Durham,  which  is  my  fourth  example.  This 
county  had  long  lain  out  of  the  pale  of  free  legis- 
lation. So  scrupulously  was  the  example  of  Chester 
followed,  that  the  style  of  the  preamble  is  nearly  the 
same  with  that  of  the  Chester  act ;  and,  without  af- 
fecting the  abstract  extent  of  the  authority  of  Parlia- 
ment, it  recognizes  the  equity  of  not  suffering  any  con- 
siderable district,  in  which  the  British  subjects  may 
act  as  a  body,  to  be  taxed  without  their  own  voice 
in  the  grant. 

Now  if  the  doctrines  of  policy  contained  in  these  pre- 
ambles, and  the  force  of  these  examples  in  the  acts  of 
Parliament,  avail  anything,  what  can  be  said  against 
applying  them  with  regard  to  America  ?  Are  not  the 
people  of  America  as  much  Englishmen  as  the  Welsh? 
Tlic  preamble  of  the  act  of  Henry  the  Eighth  says, 
the  Welsh  speak  a  language  no  way  resembling  that 
of  his  Majesty's  English  subjects.  Are  the  Americans 
not  as  numerous  ?  If  we  may  trust  the  learned  and 
accurate  Judge  Barrington's  account  of  Nortli  Wales, 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.         153 

and  take  that  as  a  standard  to  measure  the  rest,  there 
is  no  comparison.  Tlie  people  cannot  amount  to  above 
200,000  :  not  a  tenth  part  of  the  number  in  the  colo- 
nies. Is  America  in  rebellion  ?  Wales  was  hardly 
ever  free  from  it.  Have  you  attempted  to  govern 
America  by  penal  statutes  ?  You  made  fifteen  for 
Wales.  But  your  legislative  authority  is  perfect  with 
regard  to  America  :  was  it  less  perfect  in  Wales,  Ches- 
ter, and  Durham  ?  But  America  is  virtually  repre- 
sented. What !  does  the  electric  force  of  virtual 
representation  more  easily  pass  over  the  Atlantic 
than  pervade  Wales,  which  lies  in  your  neighbor- 
hood ?  or  than  Chester  and  Durham,  surrounded  by 
abundance  of  representation  that  is  actual  and  palpa- 
ble ?  But,  Sir,  your  ancestors  thought  this  sort  of 
virtual  representation,  however  ample,  to  be  totally 
insufficient  for  the  freedom  of  the  inhabitants  of  ter- 
ritories that  are  so  near,  and  comparatively  so  in- 
considerable. How,  then,  can  I  think.it  sufficient 
for  those  which  are  infinitely  greater,  and  infinitely 
more  remote  ? 

You  will  now,  Sir,  perhaps  imagine  that  I  am  on 
the  point  of  proposing  to  you  a  scheme  for  a  repre- 
sentation of  tlie  colonies  in  Parliament.  Perhaps  I 
might  be  inclined  to  entertain  some  such  thought ; 
but  a  great  flood  stops  me  in  my  course.  Opposuit 
Natura.  I  caniujt  remove  the  eternal  barriers  of  the 
creation.  Tlie  thing,  in  that  mode,  I  do  not  know 
to  1)0  possible.  As  I  meddle  with  no  theory,  I  do  not 
absolutely  assert  the  impracticability  of  such  a  repre- 
sentation ;  but  I  do  not  see  my  way  to  it ;  and  those 
who  have  been  more  confident  have  not  bean  more 
successful.  However,  the  arm  of  public  benevolence 
is  not  shortened ;  and  there  are  often  several  means 


154        SPEECH    OX    CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA. 

to  the  same  end.  What  Nature  has  disjoined  in  one 
way  Avisdom  may  unite  in  another.  When  we  can- 
not give  the  benefit  as  we  would  wish,  let  us  not  re- 
fuse it  altogether.  If  we  cannot  give  the  principal, 
let  us  find  a  substitute.  But  how  ?  where  ?  what 
substitute  ? 

Fortunately,  I  am  not  obliged,  for  the  ways  and 
means  of  this  substitute,  to  tax  my  own  unproductive 
invention.  I  am  not  even  obliged  to  go  to  the  rich 
treasury  of  the  fertile  framers  of  imaginary  common- 
wealths :  not  to  the  Eepublic  of  Plato,  not  to  the  Uto- 
pia of  More,  not  to  the  Oceana  of  Harrington.  It  is 
before  me,  —  it  is  at  my  feet, — 

"  And  the  rude  swain 
Treads  daily  on  it  with  his  clouted  shoon." 

I  only  wish  you  to  recognize,  for  the  theory,  the  an- 
cient constitutional  policy  of  this  kingdom  with  regard 
to  representation,  as  that  policy  has  been  declared  in 
acts  of  Parliament,  —  and  as  to  the  practice,  to  return 
to  that  mode  which  an  uniform  experience  has  marked 
out  to  you  as  best,  and  in  which  you  walked  with  se- 
curity, advantage,  and  honor,  until  the  year  1763. 

My  resolutions,  therefore,  mean  to  establish  the 
equity  and  justice  of  a  taxation  of  America  by  grant, 
and  not  by  imposition  ;  to  mark  the  legal  competency  of 
the  colony  assemblies  for  the  support  of  their  govern- 
ment in  peace,  and  for  public  aids  in  time  of  war ; 
to  acknowledge  that  this  legal  competency  has  had 
a  dutiful  and  beneficial  exercise,  and  that  experience 
has  shown  the  benefit  of  their  grants,  and  the  futility 
of  Parliamentary  taxation,  as  a  method  of  supply. 

These  solid  truths  compose  six  fundamental  propo- 
sitions. There  are  three  more  resolutions  corollary 
to  these.     If  you  admit  the  first  set,  you  can  hardly 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA.  155 

reject  tlic  others.  But  if  you  admit  the  first,  I  shall 
be  far  from  solicitous  whether  you  accept  or  refuse 
the  last.  I  think  these  six  massive  pillars  will  be  of 
strength  sufficient  to  support  the  temple  of  British 
concord.  I  have  no  more  doubt  than  I  entertain  of 
my  existence,  that,  if  you  admitted  these,  you  would 
command  an  immediate  peace,  and,  with  but  tolera- 
ble future  management,  a  lasting  obedience  in  Amer- 
ica. I  am  not  arrogant  in  this  confident  assurance. 
The  propositions  are  all  mere  matters  of  fact ;  and  if 
they  are  such  facts  as  draw  irresistible  conclusions 
even  in  the  stating,  this  is  the  power  of  truth,  and 
not  any  management  of  mine. 

Sir,  I  shall  open  the  whole  plan  to  you  together, 
with  such  observations  on  the  motions  as  may  tend  to 
illustrate  them,  where  they  may  want  explanation. 

The  first  is  a  resolution,  —  "  That  the  colonies  and 
plantations  of  Great  Britain  in  North  America,  con- 
sisting of  fourteen  separate  governments,  and  con- 
taining two  millions  and  upwards  of  free  inhabitants, 
have  not  had  the  liberty  and  privilege  of  electing  and 
sending  any  knights  and  burgesses,  or  others,  to  rep- 
resent them  in  the  high  court  of  Parliament." 

This  is  a  plain  matter  of  fact,  necessary  to  be  laid 
down,  and  (excepting  the  description)  it  is  laid  down 
in  the  language  of  the  Constitution  ;  it  is  taken  nearly 
verbatim  from  acts  of  Parliament. 

The  second  is  like  unto  the  first,  —  "  That  the  said 
colonies  and  plantations  have  been  made  liable  to,  and 
bounden  by,  several  subsidies,  payments,  rates,  and 
taxes,  given  and  granted  by  Parliament,  though  the 
said  colonies  and  plantations  have  not  their  knights 
and  burgesses  in  the  said  high  court  of  Parliament, 
of  their  own  election,  to  represent  the  condition  of 


156         SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA. 

their  country ;  by  lack  whereof  they  have  been  often- 
times touched  and  grieved  by  subsidies,  given,  grant- 
ed, and  assented  to,  in  tlie  said  court,  in  a  manner 
prejudicial  to  the  common  wealth,  quietness,  rest,  and 
peace  of  the  subjects  inhabiting  within  the  same." 

Is  this  description  too  hot  or  too  cold,  too  strong 
or  too  weak  ?  Does  it  arrogate  too  much  to  the  su- 
preme legislature  ?  Does  it  lean  too  much  to  the 
claims  of  the  people  ?  If  it  runs  into  any  of  these 
errors,  the  fault  is  not  mine.  It  is  the  language  of 
your  own  ancient  acts  of  Parliament. 

Non  mens  hie  scrmo,  scd  qua;  prseccpit  Ofcllus 
Husticus,  abnormis  sapiens. 

It  is  the  genuine  produce  of  the  ancient,  rustic,  manly, 
homo-bred  sense  of  this  country.  I  did  not  dare  to  rub 
off  a  particle  of  the  venerable  rust  that  rather  adorns 
and  preserves  than  destroys  the  metal.  It  would  be 
a  profanation  to  touch  witli  a  tool  the  stones  which 
construct  the  sacred  altar  of  peace.  I  would  not  vio- 
late with  modern  polish  the  iaigcnuous  and  noble 
roughness  of  these  truly  constitutional  materials. 
Above  all  things,  I  was  resolved  not  to  bo  guilty  of 
tampering,  —  the  odious  vice  of  restless  and  unstable 
minds.  I  put  my  foot  in  the  tracks  of  our  fore- 
fathers, where  I  can  neither  wander  nor  stumble. 
Determining  to  fix  articles  of  peace,  I  Avas  resolved 
not  to  be  wise  beyond  what  was  written ;  1  was  re- 
solved to  use  nothing  else  than  the  form  of  sound 
words,  to  let  others  abound  in  their  own  sense,  and 
carefully  to  abstain  from  all  expressions  of  my  own. 
What  the  law  has  said,  I  say.  In  all  things  else  I 
am  silent.  I  have  no  organ  but  for  her  words.  Tliis, 
if  it  be  not  ingenious,  I  am  sure  is  safe. 

There  are,  indeed,  words  expressive  of  grievance  in 


SPEECH    ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.         157 

lliis  second  resolution,  which  those  who  are  resolved 
always  to  be  in  the  right  will  deny  to  contain  matter 
of  fact,  as  applied  to  the  present  case  ;  although  Par- 
liament thought  them  true  with  regard  to  the  Coun- 
ties of  Chester  and  Durham.  They  will  deny  that  the 
Americans  were  ever  "  touched  and  grieved "  with 
the  taxes.  If  they  consider  nothing  in  taxes  hut 
their  weight  as  pecuniary  impositions,  there  might 
be  some  pretence  for  this  denial.  But  men  may  be 
sorely  touched  and  deeply  grieved  in  their  privileges, 
as  well  as  in  their  purses.  Men  may  lose  little  in 
property  by  the  act  which  takes  away  all  their  free- 
dom. Wlien  a  man  is  robbed  of  a  trifle  on  the  high- 
way, it  is  not  the  twopence  lost  that  constitutes  the 
capital  outrage.  This  is  not  confined  to  privileges. 
Even  ancient  indulgences  withdrawn,  without  offence 
on  the  part  of  those  who  enjoyed  such  favors,  operate 
as  grievances.  But  were  the  Americans,  tlien,  not 
touched  and  grieved  by  the  taxes,  in  some  measure, 
merely  as  taxes  ?  If  so,  why  were  they  almost  all  ei- 
ther wholly  repealed  or  exceedingly  reduced  ?  Were 
they  not  touched  and  grieved  even  by  the  regulating 
duties  of  the  sixth  of  George  the  Second  ?  Else  why 
were  the  duties  first  reduced  to  one  third  in  1764,  and 
afterwards  to  a  third  of  that  third  in  the  year  1766  ? 
Were  they  not  touched  and  grieved  by  the  Stamp 
Act?  I  shall  say  they  were,  until  that  tax  is  re- 
vived. Were  they  not  touched  and  grieved  by  the 
duties  of  1767,  which  were  likewise  repealed,  and 
which  Lord  Hillsborough  tells  you  (for  the  ministry) 
were  laid  contrary  to  tlie  true  principle  of  commerce  ? 
Is  not  the  assurance  given  by  that  noble  person  to  the 
colonics  of  a  resolution  to  lay  no  more  taxes  on  them 
an  admission  that  taxes  would  touch  and  grieve  them? 


158         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA. 

Is  not  tlie  resolution  of  the  noble  lord  in  the  blue  rib- 
and, now  standing  on  your  journals,  the  strongest  of 
all  proofs  that  Parliamentary  subsidies  really  touched 
and  grieved  them  ?  Else  why  all  these  changes,  mod- 
ifications, repeals,  assurances,  and  resolutions  ? 

The  next  proposition  is,  —  "  That,  from  the  distance 
of  the  said  colonies,  and  from  other  circumstances,  no 
method  hath  hitherto  been  devised  for  procuring  a 
representation  in  Parliament  for  the  said  colonies." 

This  is  an  assertion  of  a  fact.  I  go  no  further  on 
the  paper  ;  though,  in  my  private  judgment,  an  useful 
representation  is  impossible  ;  I  am  sure  it  is  not  de- 
sired by  them,  nor  ought  it,  perhaps,  by  us  :  but  I 
abstain  from  opinions. 

The  fourth  resolution  is,  —  "  That  each  of  the  said 
colonies  hath  within  itself  a  body,  chosen,  in  part  or 
in  the  whole,  by  the  freemen,  freeholders,  or  other 
free  inhabitants  thereof,  commonly  called  the  General 
Assembly,  or  General  Court,  with  powers  legally  to 
raise,  levy,  and  assess,  according  to  the  several  usages 
of  such  colonies,  duties  and  taxes  towards  defraying 
all  sorts  of  public  services." 

This  competence  in  the  colony  assemblies  is  cer- 
tain. It  is  proved  by  tlie  whole  tenor  of  their  acts  of 
supply  in  all  the  assemblies,  in  which  the  constant 
stylo  of  granting  is,  "  An  aid  to  his  Majesty"  ;  and 
acts  granting  to  the  crown  have  regularly,  for  near 
a  century,  passed  the  public  offices  without  dispute. 
Those  who  have  been  pleased  paradoxically  to  deny 
this  right,  holding  that  none  but  the  British  Parlia- 
ment can  grant  to  the  crown,  are  wished  to  look  to 
what  is  done,  not  only  in  the  colonies,  but  in  Ireland, 
in  one  uniform,  unbroken  tenor,  every  session.  Sir, 
I  am  surprised  that  this  doctrine  should  come  from 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA.         159 

Bome  of  the  law  servants  of  the  crown.  I  say,  that, 
if  the  crown  *coulcT  1)e  responsible,  his  Majesty,  —  bnt 
certainly  the  ministers,  and  even  these  law  oflEicers 
themselves,  through  whose  hands  the  acts  pass  bien- 
nially in  Ireland,  or  annually  in  the  colonies,  are  in 
an  habitual  course  of  committing  impeachable  offen- 
ces. Wluxt  habitual  offenders  have  been  all  Presi- 
dents of  the  Council,  all  Secretaries  of  State,  all  First 
Lords  of  Trade,  all  Attorneys  and  all  Solicitors  Gen- 
eral !  However,  they  are  safe,  as  no  one  impeaclies 
them ;  and  there  is  no  ground  of  charge  against 
them,  except  in  their  own  unfounded  theories. 

The  fifth  resolution  is  also  a  resolution  of  fact,  — 
"  That  the  said  general  assemblies,  general  courts, 
or  other  bodies  legally  qualified  as  aforesaid,  have  at 
sundry  times  freely  granted  several  large  subsidies 
and  public  aids  for  his  Majesty's  service,  according  to 
their  abilities,  when  required  thereto  by  letter  from 
one  of  his  Majesty's  principal  Secretaries  of  State  ; 
and  that  their  right  to  grant  the  same,  and  their 
cheerfulness  and  sufficiency  in  the  said  grants,  have 
been  at  sundry  times  acknowledged  by  Parliament." 

To  say  nothing  of  their  great  expenses  in  the  Indian 
wars,  and  not  to  take  their  exertion  in  foreign  ones, 
so  high  as  the  supplies  in  the  year  1695,  not  to  go 
back  to  their  public  contributions  in  the  year  1710, 
I  shall  begin  to  travel  only  where  the  journals  give 
me  light,  —  resolving  to  deal  in  notliing  but  fact  au- 
thenticated by  Parliamentary  record,  and  to  build 
myself  wholly  on  that  solid  basis. 

On  the  4th  of  April,  1748,*  a  committee  of  this 
House  came  to  the  following  resolution  :  — 

*'  Resolved,  That  it  is  tlio  opinion  of  this  commit- 

*  Journals  of  the  IIou.sc,  Vol.  XXV. 


160         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA. 

tee,  that  it  is  just  and  reasonable,  that  tlie  several  prov- 
inces and  colonics  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  New  Hamp- 
shire, Connecticut,  and  Rhode  Island  be  reimbursed 
the  expenses  they  have  been  at  in  taking  and  secur- 
ing to  the  crown  of  Great  Britain  the  island  of  Cape 
Breton  and  its  dependencies." 

These  expenses  were  immense  for  such  colonics. 
They  were  above  200,000/.  sterling:  money  first 
raised  and  advanced  on  their  public  credit. 

On  the  28th  of  January,  1756,*  a  message  from  the 
king  came  to  us,  to  this  effect:  — "  His  Majesty,  being 
sensible  of  the  zeal  and  vigor  with  which  his  faithful 
subjects  of  certain  colonies  in  North  America  have 
exerted  themselves  in  defence  of  his  Majesty's  just 
rights  and  possessions,  recommends  it  to  this  House 
to  take  the  same  into  their  consideration,  and  to  en- 
able his  Majesty  to  give  them  such  assistance  as  may 
be  a  jjTo/^cr  reivard  and  encouragement y 

On  the  3d  of  February,  1756,f  the  House  came  to 
a  suitable  resolution,  expressed  in  words  nearly  the 
same  as  those  of  the  message ;  but  with  the  further 
addition,  that  the  money  then  voted  was  as  an  encour- 
agement  to  the  colonics  to  exert  themselves  with  vigor. 
It  will  not  be  necessary  to  go  through  all  the  testi- 
monies which  your  own  records  have  given  to  the 
truth  of  my  resolutions.  I  will  only  refer  you  to  the 
places  in  the  journals  :  — 

Vol.  XXVH.  — 16th  and  19th  May,  1757. 

Vol.  XXVm.  — June  1st,  1758,  — April  26th  and 
30th,  1759,  —  March  26th  and  31st,  and  April 
28th,  1760,  — Jan.  9th  and  20th,  1761. 

Vol.  XXIX.— Jan.  22d  and  26th,  1762,  — March 
14th  and  17th,  1763. 

•  Journals  of  the  House,  Vol.  XXVII.  t  Ibid. 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA.         161 

Sir,  here  is  the  repeated  acknowledgment  of  Par- 
liament, that  the  colonies  not  only  gave,  but  gave  to 
satiety.  This  nation  has  formally  acknowledged  two 
things :  first,  that  the  colonies  had  gone  beyond  tlieir 
abilities.  Parliament  having  thought  it  necessary  to 
reimburse  them ;  secondly,  that  they  had  acted  le- 
gally and  laudably  in  their  grants  of  money,  and  their 
maintenance  of  troops,  since  the  compensation  is  ex- 
pressly given  as  reward  and  encouragement.  Re- 
ward is  not  bestowed  for  acts  that  arc  unlawful ;  and 
encouragement  is  not  held  out  to  things  that  deserve 
reprehension.  My  resolution,  therefore,  does  nothing 
more  than  collect  into  one  proposition  what  is  scat- 
tered through  your  journals.  I  give  you  nothing 
but  your  own ;  and  you  cannot  refuse  in  the  gross 
what  you  have  so  often  acknowledged  in  detail.  The 
admission  of  this,  which  will  be  so  honorable  to  them 
and  to  yoii,  will,  indeed,  be  mortal  to  all  the  miser- 
able stories  by  which  the  passions  of  the  misguided 
people  have  been  engaged  in  an  unhappy  system. 
The  people  heard,  indeed,  from  the  beginning  of  these 
disputes,  one  thing  continually  dinned  in  their  ears : 
that  reason  and  justice  demanded,  that  the  Ameri- 
cans, who  paid  no  taxes,  should  be  compelled  to 
contribute.  How  did  that  fact,  of  their  paying  noth- 
ing, stand,  when  the  taxing  system  began  ?  When 
]\Ir.  Grcnville  began  to  form  his  system  of  American 
revenue,  he  stated  in  this  House  that  tlie  colo- 
nies were  then  in  debt  two  million  six  hundred  thou- 
sand pounds  sterling  money,  and  was  of  opinion  they 
would  discharge  that  debt  in  four  years.  On  this 
state,  tliose  untaxed  people  were  actually  suliject  to 
the  payment  of  taxes  to  the  amount  of  six  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  a  year.     In  fact,  however,  Mr 

VOL.   II.  II 


162         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMEPJCA. 

Grenville  was  mistaken.  The  funds  given  for  sink- 
ing the  debt  did  not  prove  quite  so  ample  as  both  the 
colonies  and  he  expected.  The  calculation  was  too 
sanguine  :  the  reduction  was  not  completed  till  some 
years  after,  and  at  different  times  in  different  colo- 
nies. However,  the  taxes  after  the  war  continued 
too  great  to  bear  any  addition,  with  prudence  or  pro- 
priety ;  and  when  the  burdens  imposed  in  conse- 
quence of  former  requisitions  were  discharged,  our 
tone  became  too  high  to  resort  again  to  requisition. 
No  colony,  since  that  time,  ever  has  had  any  requisi- 
tion whatsoever  made  to  it. 

We  see  the  sense  of  the  crown,  and  the  sense  of 
Parliament,  on  the  productive  nature  of  a  revenue  hy 
grant.  Now  search  the  same  journals  for  the  produce 
of  the  revenue  hy  imposition.  Where  is  it  ?  —  let  us 
know  the  volume  and  the  page.  What  is  the  gross, 
what  is  the  net  produce  ?  To  what  service  is  it  ap- 
plied ?  How  have  you  appropriated  its  surplus  ?  — 
What!  can  none  of  the  many  skilful  index-makers 
that  we  are  now  employing  find  any  trace  of  it  ?  — 
Well,  let  them  and  that  rest  together.  —  But  are  the 
journals,  which  say  nothing  of  the  revenue,  as  silent 
on  the  discontent  ?  —  Oh,  no  !  a  child  may  find  it.  It 
is  the  melancholy  burden  and  blot  of  every  page. 

I  think,  then,  I  am,  from  those  journals,  justified 
in  the  sixth  and  last  resolution,  which  is,  —  "  That  it 
hath  been  found  by  experience,  that  the  manner  of 
granting  the  said  supplies  and  aids  by  the  said  gen- 
eral assemblies  hath  been  more  agreeable  to  the  in- 
habitants of  the  said  colonies,  and  more  beneficial  and 
conducive  to  the  public  service,  than  the  mode  of  giv- 
ing and  granting  aids  and  subsidies  in  Parliament,  to 
be  raised  and  paid  in  the  said  colonies." 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH   AMERICA.         163 

This  makes  the  whole  of  the  fundamental  part  of  the 
plan.  The  conclusion  is  irresistible.  You  cannot  say 
that  you  were  driven  by  any  necessity  to  an  exercise 
of  the  utmost  rights  of  legislature.  You  cannot  assert 
that  you  took  on  yourselves  the  task  of  imposing  colony 
taxes,  from  the  want  of  another  legal  body  that  is  com- 
petent to  the  purpose  of  supplying  the  exigencies  of  the 
state  without  wounding  the  prejudices  of  the  people. 
Neither  is  it  true  that  the  body  so  qualified,  and  hav- 
ing that  competence,  had  neglected  the  duty. 

The  question  now,  on  all  this  accumulated  matter, 
is,  —  "Whether  you  will  choose  to  abide  by  a  profitable 
experience  or  a  mischievous  theory  ?  whether  you 
choose  to  build  on  imagination  or  fact  ?  whether  you 
prefer  enjoyment  or  hope  ?  satisfaction  in  your  sub- 
jects, or  discontent  ? 

If  these  propositions  are  accepted,  everything  which 
has  been  made  to  enforce  a  contrary  system  must,  I 
take  it  for  granted,  fall  along  with  it.  On  that  ground, 
I  have  drawn  the  following  resolution,  which,  when  it 
comes  to  be  moved,  will  naturally  be  divided  in  a 
proper  manner:  —  "  That  it  may  be  proper  to  repeal 
an  act,  made  in  the  seventh  year  of  the  reign  of  liis 
present  Majesty,  intituled,  'An  act  for  granting  certain 
duties  in  the  British  colonies  and  plantations  in  Amer- 
ica ;  for  allowing  a  drawback  of  the  duties  of  customs, 
upon  the  exportation  from  this  kingdom,  of  coffee 
and  cocoa-nuts,  of  the  produce  of  the  said  colonies  or 
plantations  ;  for  discontinuing  the  drawbacks  payable 
on  Cliina  earthen  ware  exported  to  America  ;  and  for 
more  effectually  preventing  the  clandestine  running 
of  goods  in  the  said  colonies  and  plantations.'  —  And 
also,  that  it  may  be  proper  to  repeal  an  act,  made  in 
the  fourteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  his  present  Majesty, 


164         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA. 

intituled, '  Aii  act  to  discontinue,  in  such  manner  and 
for  such  time  as  are  therein  mentioned,  the  landing 
and  discliarging,  lading  or  shipping,  of  goods,  wares, 
and  merchandise,  at  the  town  and  within  the  harbor 
of  Boston,  in  the  province  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  in 
North  America.'  —  And  also,  that  it  may  bo  proper  to 
repeal  an  act,  made  in  the  fourteenth  year  of  the  reign 
of  his  present  Majesty,  intituled,  '  An  act  for  the  im- 
partial administration  of  justice,  in  the  cases  of  per- 
sons questioned  for  any  acts  done  by  them,  in  tlie  ex- 
ecution of  the  law,  or  for  the  suppression  of  riots  and 
tumults,  in  the  province  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay,  in 
New  England.'  — And  also,  that  it  may  be  proper  to 
repeal  an  act,  made  in  the  fourteenth  year  of  the  reign 
of  his  present  Majesty,  intituled,  '  An  act  for  the  bet- 
ter regulating  the  government  of  the  province  of  the 
Massachusetts  Bay,  in  New  England.'  —  And  also,  that 
it  may  bo  proper  to  explain  and  amend  an  act,  made 
in  the  thirty-fifth  year  of  the  reign  of  King  Henry  the 
Eighth,  intituled,  '  An  act  for  the  trial  of  treasons 
committed  out  of  the  king's  dominions.' " 

I  wish.  Sir,  to  repeal  the  Boston  Port  Bill,  because 
(independently  of  the  dangerous  precedent  of  sus- 
pending the  rights  of  the  subject  during  the  king's 
pleasure)  it  was  passed,  as  1  apprehend,  with  less  reg- 
ularity, and  on  more  partial  principles,  than  it  ought. 
The  corporation  of  Boston  was  not  heard  before  it 
was  condemned.  Other  towns,  full  as  guilty  as  she 
was,  have  not  had  their  ports  blocked  up.  Even  the 
Restraining  Bill  of  the  present  session  does  not  go  to 
the  length  of  the  Boston  Port  Act.  The  same  ideas 
of  prudence,  which  induced  you  not  to  extend  equal 
punishment  to  equal  guilt,  even  when  you  were  pun- 
ishing, induce  me,  who  mean  not  to  chastise,  but  to 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA.         165 

reconcile,  to  be  satisfied  with  the  punishment  already 
partially  inflicted. 

Ideas  of  prudence  and  accommodation  to  circum- 
stances prevent  you  from  taking  away  the  charters 
of  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island,  as  you  have  taken 
away  tliat  of  Massachusetts  Colony,  though  the  crown 
has  far  less  power  in  the  two  former  provinces  tlian 
it  enjoyed  in  the  latter,  and  though  tlie  abuses  have 
been  full  as  great  and  as  flagrant  in  the  exempted 
as  in  the  punished.  The  same  reasons  of  prudence 
and  accommodation  have  weight  with  me  in  restoring 
the  charter  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  Besides,  Sir,  the 
act  which  changes  the  charter  of  Massachusetts  is  in 
many  particulars  so  exceptionable,  that,  if  I  did  not 
wish  absolutely  to  repeal,  I  would  by  all  means  desire 
to  alter  it ;  as  several  of  its  provisions  tend  to  the  sub- 
version of  all  public  and  private  justice.  Such,  among 
others,  is  the  power  in  the  governor  to  change  the 
sheriff  at  his  pleasure,  and  to  make  a  new  returning 
ofhcer  for  every  special  cause.  It  is  shameful  to  be- 
hold such  a  regulation  standing  among  Englisli  laws. 

The  act  for  bringing  persons  accused  of  committing 
murder  under  tlie  orders  of  government  to  England 
for  trial  is  but  temporary.  That  act  has  calculated 
the  probable  duration  of  our  quarrel  witii  the  colo- 
nies, and  is  accommodated  to  that  supposed  duration. 
I  would  hasten  the  happy  moment  of  reconciliation, 
and  therefore  must,  on  my  principle,  get  rid  of  that 
most  justly  obnoxious  act. 

The  act  of  Henry  the  Eighth  for  the  trial  of  trea- 
sons 1  do  not  mean  to  take  away,  but  to  confine  it  to  its 
proper  bounds  and  original  intention :  to  make  it  ex- 
pressly for  trial  of  treasons  (and  the  greatest  treasons 
may  be  committed)  in  pUices  whci'o  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  crown  dues  not  extend. 


1B6         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA. 

Having  guarded  the  privileges  of  local  legislature, 
I  would  next  secure  to  the  colonies  a  fair  and  unbi- 
ased judicature ;  for  which  purpose,  Sir,  I  propose  the 
following,  resolution  :  —  "That,  from  the  time  wlien 
the  general  assembly,  or  general  court,  of  any  colony 
or  plantation  in  North  America  shall  have  appointed, 
by  act  of  assembly  duly  confirmed,  a  settled  salary  to 
the  offices  of  the  chief  justice  and  other  judges  of 
the  superior  courts,  it  may  be  proper  that  the  said 
chief  justice  and  other  judges  of  the  superior  courts 
of  such  colony  shall  hold  his  and  their  office  and  of- 
fices during  their  good  behavior,  and  shall  not  be  re- 
moved therefrom,  but  when  tlie  said  removal  sliall  be 
adjudged  by  his  Majesty  in  council,  upon  a  hearing 
on  complaint  from  the  general  assembly,  or  on  a  com- 
plaint from  the  governor,  or  the  council,  or  the  house 
of  representatives,  severally,  of  the  colony  in  which 
the  said  chief  justice  and  other  judges  have  exercised 
the  said  offices." 

The  next  resolution  relates  to  the  courts  of  admi- 
ralty. It  is  this :  —  "  That  it  may  be  proper  to  regu- 
late the  courts  of  admiralty  or  vice-admiralty,  author- 
ized by  the  15tli  chapter  of  the  4tli  George  the  Third, 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  the  same  more  commo- 
dious to  those  who  sue  or  are  sued  in  the  said  courts, 
and  to  provide  for  the  more  decent  maintenance  of 
the  judges  of  the  same." 

These  courts  I  do  not  wish  to  take  away :  they  are 
in  themselves  proper  establishments.  This  court  is 
one  of  the  capital  securities  of  the  Act  of  Navigation. 
The  extent  of  its  jurisdiction,  indeed,  has  been  in- 
creased ;  but  this  is  altogether  as  proper,  and  is,  in- 
deed, on  many  accounts,  more  eligible,  where  new 
powers  were  wanted,  than  a  court  absolutely  new. 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA.  167 

But  courts  incommodiously  situated,  in  effect,  deny 
justice ;  and  a  court  partaking  in  the  fruits  of  its 
own  condemnation  is  a  robber.  Tlie  Cong-ress  com- 
plain, and  complain  justly,  of  this  grievance.* 

These  are  the  three  consequential  propositions,  I 
have  thought  of  two  or  three  more ;  but  they  come 
rather  too  near  detail,  and  to  the  province  of  execu- 
tive government,  which  I  wish  Parliament  always  to 
superintend,  never  to  assume.  If  the  first  six  are 
granted,  congruity  will  carry  the  latter  three.  If 
not,  the  things  that  remain  unrepealed  will  bo,  I 
hope,  rather  unseemly  incumbrances  on  the  build- 
ing than  very  materially  detrimental  to  its  strength 
and  stability. 

Here,  Sir,  I  should  close,  but  that  I  plainly  per- 
ceive some  objections  remain,  which  I  ought,  if  possi- 
ble, to  remove.  The  first  will  be,  that,  in  resorting 
to  the  doctrine  of  our  ancestors,  as  contained  in  the 
preamble  to  the  Chester  act,  I  prove  too  much  :  that 
the  grievance  from  a  want  of  representation,  stated  in 
that  preamble,  goes  to  the  whole  of  legislation  as  well 
as  to  taxation ;  and  that  the  colonies,  grounding 
themselves  upon  that  doctrine,  will  apply  it  to  all 
parts  of  legislative  authority. 

To  this  objection,  with  all  possible  deference  and 
humility,  and  wishing  as  little  as  any  man  living  to 
impair  the  smallest  particle  of  our  supreme  authority, 
I  answer,  that  the  ivords  are  the  words  of  Parliament^ 
and  not  mine;  and  that  all  false  and  inconclusive  in- 
ferences drawn  from  them  are  not  mine  ;  for  I  heart- 

*  The  Solicitor-General  informed  Mr.  B.,  when  the  resolutions  were 
separately  moved,  that  the  grievanee  of  the  jud<,'cs  partaking  of  the 
profits  of  the  seizure  had  been  redressed  by  office;  accordingly  the 
resolution  was  amended. 


168         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA. 

ily  disclaim  any  such  inference.  I  have  chosen  the 
words  of  an  act  of  Parliament,  which  Mr.  Grcnville, 
surely  a  tolerably  zealous  and  very  judicious  advo- 
cate for  the  sovereignty  of  Parliament,  formerly  moved 
to  have  read  at  your  table  in  confirmation  of  his  ten- 
ets. It  is  true  that  Lord  Chatham  considered  these 
preambles  as  declaring  strongly  in  favor  of  his  opin- 
ions. Ho  was  a  no  less  powerful  advocate  for  the 
privileges  of  the  Americans.  Ought  I  not  from  hence 
to  presume  that  these  preambles  are  as  favorable  as 
possible  to  both,  when  properly  understood :  favora- 
ble both  to  the  rights  of  Parliament,  and  to  the  privi- 
lege of  the  dependencies  of  this  crown  ?  But,  Sir, 
the  object  of  grievance  in  my  resolution  I  have  not 
taken  from  the  Chester,  biit  from  the  Durham  act, 
which  confines  the  hardship  of  want  of  representation 
to  the  case  of  subsidies,  and  which  therefore  falls  in 
exactly  with  the  case  of  the  colonies.  But  whether 
the  unrepresented  counties  were  de  jure  or  de  facto 
bound  the  preambles  do  not  accurately  distinguish ; 
nor,  indeed,  was  it  necessary:  for,  whether  de  jure  or 
de  facto,  the  legislature  thought  the  exercise  of  the 
power  of  taxing,  as  of  right,  or  as  of  fact  without 
right,  equally  a  grievance,  and  equally  oppressive. 
I  do  not  know  that  the  colonies  have,  in  any  gen- 
eral way,  or  in  any  cool  hour,  gone  much  beyond  the 
demand  of  immunity  in  relation  to  taxes.  It  is  not 
fair  to  judge  of  the  temper  or  dispositions  of  any 
man  or  any  set  of  men,  when  they  are  composed  and 
at  rest,  from  their  conduct  or  their  expressions  in  a 
state  of  disturbance  and  irritation.  It  is,  besides,  a 
very  great  mistake  to  imagine  that  mankind  follow 
up  practically  any  speculative  principle,  either  of  gov- 
ernment or  of  freedom,  as  far  as  it  will  go  in  argu- 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA.         169 

meiit  and  logical  illation.  We  Englishmen  stop  very 
short  of  the  principles  upon  which  we  support  any 
given  part  of  our  Constitution,  or  even  the  whole  of 
it  together.  I  could  easily,  if  I  had  not  already  tired 
you,  give  you  very  striking  and  convincing  instances 
of  it.  This  is  nothing  but  what  is  natural  and  proper. 
All  government,  indeed  every  human  benefit  and 
enjoyment,  every  virtue  and  every  prudent  act,  is 
founded  on  compromise  and  barter.  We  balance 
inconveniences ;  we  give  and  take ;  we  remit  some 
riglits,  that  we  may  enjoy  others;  and  wo  choose 
rather  to  be  happy  citizens  than  subtle  disputants. 
As  we  must  give  away  some  natural  liberty,  to  enjoy 
civil  advantages,  so  we  must  sacrifice  some  civil  lib- 
erties, for  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from  the  com- 
munion and  fellowship  of  a  great  empire.  But,  in 
all  fair  dealings,  the  tiling  bought  must  bear  some 
proportion  to  the  purchase  paid.  None  will  barter 
away  the  immediate  jewel  of  his  soul.  Though  a 
great  house  is  apt  to  make  slaves  haughty,  yet  it  is 
purchasing  a  part  of  the  artificial  importance  of  a 
great  empire  too  dear,  to  pay  for  it  all  essential  rights, 
and  all  the  intrinsic  dignity  of  human  nature.  None 
of  us  who  would  not  risk  his  life  rather  than  fall 
under  a  government  purely  arbitrary.  But  although 
there  are  some  amongst  us  who  think  our  Constitu- 
tion wants  many  improvements  to  make  it  a  com- 
plete system  of  liberty,  perhaps  none  who  are  of  that 
opinion  would  think  it  right  to  aim  at  such  improve- 
ment by  disturbing  his  country  and  risking  every- 
thing that  is  dear  to  him.  In  every  arduous  enterprise, 
we  consider  what  we  are  to  lose,  as  well  as  wliat  we 
are  to  gain  ;  and  the  more  and  better  stake  of  liberty 
every  people  possess,  the  less  they  will  hazard  in  a 


170         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA. 

vain  attempt  to  make  it  more.  These  are  the  cords 
of  man.  Man  acts  from  adequate  motives  relative  to 
his  interest,  and  not  on  metaphysical  speculations. 
Aristotle,  the  great  master  of  reasoning,  cautions  us, 
and  with  great  weight  and  propriety,  against  this  spe- 
cies of  delusive  geometrical  accuracy  in  moral  arg'u- 
mcnts,  as  the  most  fallacious  of  all  sophistry. 

The  Americans  will  have  no  interest  contrary  to 
the  grandeur  and  glory  of  England,  when  they  are 
not  oppressed  by  the  weight  of  it ;  and  they  will 
rather  be  inclined  to  respect  the  acts  of  a  superin- 
tending legislature,  when  they  see  them  the  acts  of 
that  power  which  is  itself  the  security,  not  the  rival, 
of  their  secondary  importance.  In  this  assurance  my 
mind  most  perfectly  acquiesces,  and  I  confess  I  feel 
not  the  least  alarm  from  the  discontents  which  are  to 
arise  from  putting  people  at  their  ease ;  nor  do  I  ap- 
prehend- the  destruction  of  this  empire  from  giving, 
by  an  act  of  free  grace  and  indulgence,  to  two  mil- 
lions of  my  fellow-citizens  some  share  of  those  rights 
upon  which  I  have  always  been  taught  to  value  my- 
self. 

It  is  said,  indeed,  that  this  power  of  granting,  vested 
in  American  assemblies,  would  dissolve  the  unity  of 
the  empire, — which  was  preserved  entire,  although 
Wales,  and  Chester,  and  Durham  were  added  to  it. 
Truly,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  do  not  know  what  this  unity 
means ;  nor  has  it  ever  l)een  heard  of,  that  I  know, 
in  the  constitutional  policy  of  this  country.  The  very 
idea  of  subordination  of  parts  excludes  this  notion  of 
simple  and  undivided  unity.  England  is  the  head ; 
but  she  is  not  the  head  and  the  members  too.  Ire- 
land has  ever  had  from  the  beginning  a  separate,  but 
not  an  independent  legislature,  which,  far  from  dis- 


SPEECU    ON    COXCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA.         ITl 

tracting,  promoted  the  union  of  the  whole.  Every- 
thing was  sweetly  and  harmoniously  disposed  through 
both  islands  for  the  conservation  of  English  dominion 
and  the  communication  of  English  liberties.  I  do  not 
see  that  the  same  principles  might  not  be  carried  into 
twenty  islands,  and  witli  the  same  good  effect.  Tliis 
is  my  model  with  regard  to  America,  as  far  as  tlie 
internal  circumstances  of  the  two  countries  are  the 
same.  I  know  no  other  unity  of  this  empire  tlian  I 
can  draw  from  its  example  during  these  periods,  when 
it  seemed  to  my  poor  understanding  more  united 
than  it  is  now,  or  than  it  is  likely  to  be  by  the  present 
methods. 

But  since  I  speak  of  these  methods,  I  recollect,  Mr. 
Speaker,  almost  too  late,  tliat  I  promised,  before  I  fin- 
ished, to  say  something  of  the  proposition  of  the  no- 
ble lord*  on  the  floor,  which  has  been  so  lately 
received,  and  stands  on  your  journals.  I  must  be 
deeply  concerned,  whenever  it  is  my  misfortune  to 
continue  a  difference  with  the  majority  of  this  House. 
But  as  the  reasons  for  that  difference  are  my  apology 
for  thus  troubling  you,  suffer  me  to  state  them  in  a 
very  few  words.  I  shall  compress  them  into  as  small 
a  body  as  I  possibly  can,  having  already  debated  that 
matter  at  large,  when  the  question  was  before  the 
committee. 

First,  then,  I  cannot  admit  that  proposition  of  a 
ransom  by  auction,  —  because  it  is  a  mere  project. 
It  is  a  thing  new,  unheard  of,  supported  by  no  ex- 
perience, justified  by  no  analogy,  without  example 
of  our  ancestors,  or  root  in  the  Constitution.  It  is 
neither  regular  Parliamentary  taxation  nor  colony 
grant.     Experimentum  in  corpora  vili  is  a  good  rule 


*  Lord  North. 


172         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA. 

which  will  ever  make  me  adverse  to  any  trial  of  ex- 
periments on  what  is  certainly  the  most  valuable  of 
all  subjects,  the  peace  of  this  empire. 

Secondly,  it  is  an  experiment  which  must  be  fatal 
in  tlie  end  to  our  Constitution.  For  what  is  it  but  a 
scheme  for  taxing  the  colonics  in  the  antechamber 
of  the  noble  lord  and  his  successors?  To  settle  the 
quotas  and  proportions  in  this  House  is  clearly  im- 
possible. You,  Sir,  may  flatter  yourself  you  shall  sit 
a  state  auctioneer,  with  your  hammer  in  your  hand, 
and  knock  down  to  eacb  colony  as  it  bids.  But  to 
settle  (on  the  plan  laid  down  by  the  noble  lord)  the 
true  proportional  payment  for  four  or  five  and  twenty 
governments,  according  to  the  absolute  and  the  rela- 
tive wealth  of  each,  and  according  to  tlie  British  pro- 
portion of  wealth  and  burden,  is  a  wild  and  chimeri- 
cal notion.  This  new  taxation  must  therefore  come 
in  by  the  back-door  of  the  Constitution.  Each  quota 
must  be  brought  to  this  House  ready  formed.  You 
can  neither  add  nor  alter.  You  must  register  it. 
You  can  do  nothing  further.  For  on  what  grounds 
can  you  deliberate  either  before  or  after  the  proposi- 
tion ?  You  cannot  hear  the  counsel  for  all  these 
provinces,  quarrelling  each  on  its  own  quantity  of 
payment,  and  its  proportion  to  others.  If  you  should 
attempt  it,  the  Committee  of  Provincial  Ways  and 
Means,  or  by  whatever  other  name  it  will  deliglit  to 
be  called,  must  swallow  up  all  the  time  of  Parlia- 
ment. 

Thirdly,  it  does  not  give  satisfaction  to  the  com- 
plaint of  the  colonies.  They  complain  that  they  are 
taxed  without  their  consent.  You  answer,  that  you 
will  fix  the  sum  at  which  they  sluall  be  taxed.  That 
is,  you  give  them  the  very  grievance  for  the  remedy. 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA.         173 

You  tell  them,  indeed,  that  you  will  leave  the  mode 
to  themselves.  I  really  beg  pardon  ;  it  gives  me  pain 
to  mention  it ;  hut  you  must  be  sensible  that  you  will 
not  perform  this  part  of  the  compact.  For  suppose 
the  colonies  were  to  lay  the  duties  which  furnished 
their  contingent  upon  the  importation  of  your  manu- 
factures ;  you  know  you  would  never  suffer  such  a 
tax  to  be  laid.  You  know,  too,  that  you  would  not 
suffer  many  other  modes  of  taxation.  So  that,  when 
you  come  to  explain  yourself,  it  will  be  found  that 
you  will  neither  leave  to  themselves  the  quantum  nor 
the  mode,  nor  indeed  anything.  The  whole  is  delu- 
sion, from  one  end  to  the  other. 

Fourthly,  this  method  of  ransom  by  auction,  unless 
it  be  universally  accepted,  will  plunge  you  into  great 
and  inextricable  difficulties.  In  what  year  of  our 
Lord  are  the  proportions  of  payments  to  be  settled  ? 
To  say  nothing  of  the  impossibility  that  colony  agents 
should  have  general  powers  of  taxing  the  colonies  at 
their  discretion,  consider,  I  implore  you,  that  the 
communication  by  special  messages  and  orders  be- 
tween these  agents  and  their  constituents  on  each  va- 
riation of  the  case,  when  the  parties  come  to  contend 
togetlier,  and  to  dispute  on  their  relative  proportions, 
will  be  a  matter  of  delay,  perplexity,  and  confusion, 
that  never  can  have  an  end. 

If  all  the  colonies  do  not  appear  at  the  outcry,  what 
is  the  condition  of  those  assemblies  who  offer,  by 
themselves  or  their  agents,  to  tax  themselves  up  to 
your  ideas  of  their  proportion  ?  The  refractory  colo- 
nies, Avho  refuse  all  composition,  will  remain  taxed 
only  to  your  old  impositions,  which,  however  grievous 
in  princij)le,  are  trilHng  as  to  production.  The  obe- 
dient colonics  in  this  scheme  arc  heavily  taxed ;  the 


174         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA. 

refractory  remain  iinbiirdcned.  Wliat  will  you  do  ? 
Will  you  lay  new  and  heavier  taxes  by  Parliament 
on  the  disobedient  ?  Pray  consider  in  what  way  you 
can  do  it.  You  are  perfectly  convinced,  that,  in  the 
way  of  taxing,  you  can  do  nothing  but  at  the  ports. 
Now  suppose  it  is  Virginia  that  refuses  to  appear  at 
your  auction,  while  Maryland  and  North  Carolina  bid 
handsomely  for  their  ransom,  and  are  taxed  to  your 
quota,  how  will  you  put  these  colonies  on  a  par  ? 
Will  yoit  tax  the  tobacco  of  Virginia  ?  If  you  do, 
you  give  its  death-wound  to  your  English  revenue  at 
home,  and  to  one  of  the  very  greatest  articles  of  your 
own  foreign  trade.  If  you  tax  the  import  of  that  re- 
bellious colony,  what  do  you  tax  but  your  own  manu- 
factures, or  the  goods  of  some  other  obedient  and 
already  well-taxed  colony  ?  Who  has  said  one  word 
on  this  labyrinth  of  detail,  which  bewilders  you  more 
and  more  as  you  enter  into  it  ?  Who  has  presented, 
who  can  present,  you  with  a  clew  to  lead  you  out  of 
it  ?  I  think,  Sir,  it  is  impossible  that  you  should  not 
recollect  that  the  colony  bounds  are  so  implicated  in 
one  another  (you  know  it  by  your  other  experiments 
in  the  bill  for  prohibiting  the  New  England  fisliery) 
that  you  can  lay  no  possible  restraints  on  almost  any 
of  them  which  may  not  be  presently  eluded,  if  you  do 
not  confound  the  innocent  with  the  guilty,  and  bur- 
den those  whom  upon  every  principle  you  ought  to 
exonerate.  He  must  be  grossly  ignorant  of  America, 
who  thinks,  that,  without  falling  into  this  confusion 
of  all  rules  of  equity  and  policy,  you  can  restrain  any 
single  colony,  especially  Virginia  and  Maryland,  the 
central,  and  most  important  of  them  all. 

Let  it  also  be  considered,  that  either  in  the  pres- 
ent  confusion   }ou   settle   a  permanent   contingent, 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION  WITH   AMERICA.  175 

which  will  and  must  be  trifling,  and  then  you  have 
no  effectual  revenue,  —  or  you  change  the  quota  at 
every  exigency,  and  then  on  every  new  repartition 
you  will  have  a  new  quarrel. 

Reflect  besides,  that,  when  you  have  fixed  a  quota 
for  every  colony,  you  have  not  provided  for  prompt 
and  punctual  payment.  Suppose  one,  two,  five,  ten 
years'  arrears.  You  cannot  issue  a  Treasury  extent 
against  the  failing  colony.  You  must  make  new 
Boston  port  bills,  new  restraining  laws,  now  acts  for 
dragging  men  to  England  for  trial.  You  must  send 
out  new  fleets,  new  armies.  All  is  to  begin  again. 
From  this  day  forward  the  empire  is  never  to  know 
an  hour's  tranquillity.  An  intestine  fire  will  be  kept 
alive  in  the  bowels  of  the  colonies,  which  one  time  or 
other  must  consume  this  whole  empire.  I  allow,  in- 
deed, that  the  Empire  of  Germany  raises  her  revenue 
and  her  troops  by  quotas  and  contingents  ;  but  the 
revenue  of  the  Empire  and  the  army  of  the  Empire  is 
the  worst  revenue  and  the  worst  army  in  the  world. 

Instead  of  a  standing  revenue,  you  will  therefore 
have  a  perpetual  quarrel.  Indeed,  the  noble  lord 
who  proposed  this  project  of  a  ransom  by  auction 
seemed  himself  to  be  of  that  opinion.  His  project 
was  rather  designed  for  breaking  the  union  of  the 
colonies  than  for  establishing  a  revenue.  He  con- 
fessed he  apprehended  that  his  proposal  would  not 
be  to  their  taste.  I  say,  this  scheme  of  disunion  seems 
to  be  at  the  bottom  of  the  project ;  for  I  will  not  sus- 
pect that  the  noble  lord  meant  nothing  but  merely 
to  delude  the  nation  by  an  airy  pliantom  which  he 
never  intended  to  realize.  But  whatever  his  views 
may  be,  as  I  propose  the  peace  and  union  of  the 
colonies  as  the  very  foundation  of  my  plan,  it  can- 


176         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA. 

not  accord  with  one  whose  foundation  is  perpetual 
discord. 

Compare  the  two.  This  I  offer  to  give  you  is  plain 
and  simple  :  the  other  full  of  perplexed  and  intri- 
cate mazes.  This  is  mild  :  that  harsh.  This  is  found 
by  experience  effectual  for  its  purposes  :  the  other  is 
a  new  project.  This  is  universal :  the  other  calculat 
ed  for  certain  colonies  only.  Tliis  is  immediate  in 
its  conciliatory  operation  :  the  other  remote,  contin- 
gent, full  of  hazard.  Mine  is  what  becomes  the  dig- 
nity of  a  ruling  people  :  gratuitous,  unconditional, 
and  not  held  out  as  matter  of  bargain  and  sale. 
I  have  done  my  duty  in  proposing  it  to  you.  I  have, 
indeed,  tired  you  by  a  long  discourse  ;  but  this  is 
the  misfortune  of  those  to  whoso  influence  nothinjr 
will  be  conceded,  and  who  must  win  every  inch  of 
their  ground  by  argument.  You  have  heard  me  with 
goodness.  May  you  decide  with  wisdom !  For  my 
part,  I  feel  my  mind  greatly  disburdened  by  what  1 
have  done  to-day.  I  have  been  the  less  fearful  of 
trying  your  patience,  because  on  this  subject  I  mean 
to  spare  it  altogether  in  future.  I  have  this  comfort, 
—  that,  in  every  stage  of  the  American  affairs,  I 
have  steadily  opposed  the  measures  that  have  pro- 
duced the  confusion,  and  may  bring  on  the  destruc- 
ti'on,  of  this  empire.  I  now  go  so  far  as  to  risk  a 
proposal  of  my  own.  If  I  cannot  give  peace  to  my 
country,  I  give  it  to  my  conscience. 

But  what  (says  the  financier)  is  peace  to  us  with- 
out money  ?  Your  plan  gives  us  no  revenue. —  No ! 
But  it  does :  for  it  secures  to  the  subject  the  power 
of  REFUSAL,  —  the  first  of  all  revenues.  Experience 
is  a  cheat,  and  fact  a  liar,  if  this  power  in  the  sub- 
ject, of  proportioning  his  grant,  or  of  not  granting 


SPEECH   ON    CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.         177 

at  all,  has  not  been  found  the  richest  mine  of  revenue 
ever  discovered  by  the  skill  or  by  the  fortune  of  man. 
It  does  not,  indeed,  vote  you  ^152,750  :  11 :  2|ths, 
nor  any  other  paltrv  limited  sum  ;  but  it  gives  the 
strong-box  itself,  the  fund,  the  bank,  from  whence  only 
revenues  can  arise  amongst  a  people  sensible  of  free- 
dom :  Posita  luditur  area.  Cannot  you  in  England, 
cannot  you  at  this  time  of  day,  cannot  you,  an  House 
of  Commons,  trust  to  the  principle  which  has  raised 
so  mighty  a  revenue,  and  accumulated  a  debt  of  near 
140  millions  in  this  country  ?  Is  this  principle  to  be 
true  in  England  and  false  everywhere  else  ?  Is  it 
not  true  in  Ireland  ?  Has  it  not  hitherto  been  true 
in  the  colonies  ?  Why  should  you  presume,  that,  in 
any  country,  a  body  duly  constituted  for  any  func- 
tion will  neglect  to  perform  its  duty,  and  abdicate  its 
trust  ?  Such  a  presumption  would  go  against  all 
government  in  all  modes.  But,  in  truth,  this  dread 
of  penury  of  supply  from  a  free  assembly  has  no 
foundation  in  Nature.  For  first  observe,  that,  besides 
the  desire  which  all  men  have  naturally  of  support- 
ing the  honor  of  their  own  government,  that  sense  of 
dignity,  and  that  security  to  property,  which  ever  at- 
tends freedom,  has  a  tendency  to  increase  the  stock 
of  the  free  community.  Most  may  be  taken  where 
most  is  accumulated.  And  what  is  the  soil  or  cli- 
mate where  experience  has  not  uniformly  proved 
that  tlic  voluntary  flow  of  heaped-up  plenty,  bursting 
from  the  weight  of  its  own  rich  luxuriance,  has  over 
run  with  a  more  copious  stream  of  revenue  than 
could  be  squeezed  from  the  dry  husks  of  oppressed 
indigence  by  tlie  straining  of  all  the  politic  machin- 
ery in  the  world  ? 

Next,  we  know  that  parties  must  ever  exist  in  a 

VOL.  II  12 


178         SPEECH   ON    CONCILIATION  WITH   AMERICA. 

free  country.  "We  know,  too,  that  the  emulations 
of  such  parties,  their  contradictions,  their  reciprocal 
necessities,  their  hopes,  and  their  fears,  must  send 
them  all  in  their  turns  to  him  that  holds  the  balance 
of  the  state.  The  parties  are  the  gamesters  ;  but 
government  keeps  the  table,  and  is  sure  to  be  the 
winner  in  the  end.  When  this  game  is  played,  I 
really  think  it  is  more  to  be  feared  that  the  people 
will  be  exhausted  than  that  government  will  not  bo 
supplied.  Whereas  whatever  is  got  by  acts  of  abso- 
lute power  ill  obeyed  because  odious,  or  by  contracts 
ill  kept  because  constrained,  will  be  narrow,  feeble, 
uncertain,  and  precarious. 

"  Ease  would  reti'act 
Vows  made  in  pain,  as  violent  and  void." 

I,  for  one,  protest  against  compounding  our  de- 
mands :  I  declare  against  compounding,  for  a  poor 
limited  sum,  the  immense,  ever-growing,  eternal  debt 
which  is  due  to  generous  government  from  protected 
freedom.  And  so  may  I  speed  in  the  great  object  I  pro- 
pose to  you,  as  I  think  it  would  not  only  be  an  act  of 
injustice,  but  would  be  the  worst  economy  in  the  world, 
to  compel  the  colonies  to  a  sum  certain,  either  in  the 
way  of  ransom,  or  in  the  way  of  compulsory  compact. 

But  to  clear  up  my  ideas  on  this  subject,  —  a 
revenue  from  America  transmitted  hither.  Do  not 
delude  yourselves :  you  can  never  receive  it,  —  no, 
not  a  shilling.  We  have  experience  that  from  re- 
mote countries  it  is  not  to  be  expected.  If,  when 
you  attempted  to  extract  revenue  from  Bengal,  you 
were  obliged  to  return  in  loan  what  you  had  taken  in 
imposition,  what  can  you  expect  from  North  Amer- 
ica ?  For,  certainly,  if  ever  there  was  a  country 
qualified  to  produce  wealth,  it  is  India ;  or  an  in- 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH   AMERICA.         179 

stitutioii  fit  for  the  transmission,  it  is  the  East  India 
Company.  America  lias  none  of  tliesc  aptitudes.  If 
America  gives  you  taxable  objects  on  which  you  lay 
your  duties  here,  and  gives  you  at  the  same  time  a 
surplus  by  a  foreign  sale  of  her  commodities  to  pay 
the  duties  on  these  objects  which  you  tax  at  home, 
she  has  performed  her  part  to  the  British  revenue. 
But  with  regard  to  her  own  internal  establishments, 
she  may,  I  doubt  not  she  will,  contribute  in  modera- 
tion. I  say  in  moderation  ;  for  she  ought  not  to 
be  permitted  to  exhaust  herself.  She  ought  to  be 
reserved  to  a  war ;  the  weight  of  which,  with  the 
enemies  that  we  are  most  likely  to  have,  must  be 
considerable  in  her  quarter  of  the  globe.  There  she 
may  serve  you,  and  serve  you  essentially. 

For  that  service,  for  all  service,  whether  of  reve- 
nue, trade,  or  empire,  my  trust  is  in  her  interest  in 
the  British  Constitution.  My  hold  of  the  colonics  is 
in  the  close  affection  which  grows  from  common 
names,  from  kindred  blood,  from  similar  privileges, 
and  equal  protection.  These  are  ties  which,  though 
light  as  air,  are  as  strong  as  links  of  iron.  Let  the 
colonies  always  keep  the  idea  of  their  civil  rights 
associated  with  your  government,  —  they  will  cling 
and  grapple  to  you,  and  no  force  under  heaven 
will  be  of  power  to  tear  them  from  their  allegiance. 
But  let  it  be  once  understood  that  your  government 
maybe  one  thing  and  their  privileges  another,  that 
these  two  things  may  exist  without  any  mutual  re- 
lation,—  the  cement  is  gone,  the  cohesion  is  loosen- 
ed, and  everything  hastens  to  decay  and  dissolution. 
As  long  as  you  have  the  wisdom  to  keep  tlie  sover- 
eign authority  of  this  country  as  the  sanctuary  of 
liberty,  the  sacred  temple  consecrated  to  our  common 


180         SPEECH   ON    CONCILIATION   WITH  AMERICA. 

faith,  wherever  the  chosen  race  and  sons  of  England 
worship  freedom,  they  will  turn  their  faces  towards 
you.  The  more  they  multiply,  the  more  friends  you 
will  have  ;  the  more  ardently  they  love  liberty,  the 
more  perfect  will  be  their  obedience.  Slavery  they 
can  have  anywhere.  It  is  a  weed  that '  grows  in 
every  soil.  TJiey  may  have  it  from  Spain,  they  may 
have  it  from  Prussia.  But,  until  you  become  lost  to 
all  feeling  of  your  true  interest  and  your  natural  dig- 
nity, freedom  they  can  have  from  none  but  you. 
This  is  the  commodity  of  price,  of  wliicli  you  have 
the  monopoly.  Tliis  is  the  true  Act  of  Navigation, 
which  binds  to  you  the  commerce  of  the  colonies, 
and  through  them  secures  to  you  the  wealth  of  the 
world.  Deny  them  this  participation  of  freedom,  and 
you  break  that  sole  bond  which  originally  made,  and 
must  still  preserve,  the  unity  of  the  empire.  Do  not 
entertain  so  weak  an  imagination  as  that  your  reg- 
isters and  your  bonds,  your  affidavits  and  your  suf- 
ferances, your  cockets  and  your  clearances,  are  Avhat 
form  the  great  securities  of  your  commerce.  Do  not 
dream  that  your  letters  of  oflice,  and  your  instruc- 
tions, and  your  suspending  clauses  are  the  things 
that  hold  together  the  great  contexture  of  this  mys- 
terious whole.  These  things  do  not  make  your  gov- 
ernment. Dead  instruments,  passive  tools  as  they 
are,  it  is  the  spirit  of  the  English  communion  that 
gives  all  their  life  and  efficacy  to  thorn.  It  is  the 
spirit  of  the  English  Constitution,  which,  infused 
through  the  mighty  mass,  pervades,  feeds,  unites,  in- 
vigorates, vivifies  every  part  of  the  empire,  even 
down  to  the  minutest  member. 

Is  it  not  the  same  virtue  which  does  everything  for 
us  hero  m  England  ?     Do  you  imagine,  then,  that  it 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION  WITH   AMERICA.  181 

is  the  Land -Tax  Act  ■wliicli  raises  your  revenue  ? 
that  it  is  the  annual  vote  in  the  Committee  of  Supply 
which  gives  you  your  army  ?  or  that  it  is  the  Muti- 
ny Bill  which  inspires  it  with  bravery  and  discipline? 
No  !  surely,  no !  It  is  the  love  of  the  people  ;  it  is 
theh-  attachment  to  their  government,  fj-oni  the  sense 
of  the  deep  stake  they  have  in  such  a  glorious  institu- 
tion, wliich  gives  you  your  army  and  your  navy,  and 
infuses  into  both  that  liberal  obedience  without  which 
your  army  would  be  a  base  rabble  and  your  navy 
nothing  but  rotten  timber. 

All  this,  I  know  well  enough,  will  sound  wild  and 
chimerical  to  the  profane  herd  of  those  vidgar  and 
mechanical  politicians  who  have  no  place  among  us : 
a  sort  of  people  who  think  that  nothing  exists  but 
what  is  gross  and  material,  —  and  who,  therefore,  far 
from  being  qualified  to  be  directors  of  the  great 
movement  of  empire,  are  not  fit  to  turn  a  wheel  in 
the  machine.  But  to  men  truly  initiated  and  rightly 
taught,  these  ruling  and  master  principles,  which  in 
the  opinion  of  such  men  as  I  have  mentioned  have 
no  substantial  existence,  are  in  truth  everything,  and 
all  in  all.  Magnanimity  in  politics  is  not  seldom  the 
truest  wisdom ;  and  a  great  empire  and  little  minds 
go  ill  together.  If  we  are  conscious  of  our  situation, 
and  glow  with  zeal  to  fill  our  place  as  becomes  our 
station  and  ourselves,  we  ought  to  auspicate  all  our 
public  proceedings  on  A^mcrica  with  the  old  warning 
of  the  Church,  Sursum  corda  I  We  ought  to  elevate 
our  minds  to  the  greatness  of  that  trust  to  which  the 
order  of  Providence  has  called  us.  By  adverting  to 
the  dignity  of  this  high  calling  our  ancestors  have 
turned  a  savage  wilderness  into  a  glorious  empire, 
and  have  made  the  most  extensive  and  the  only  lion- 


182         SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA. 

orable  conquests,  not  by  destroying,  but  by  promoting 
tlic  wealth,  the  number,  the  happiness  of  the  human 
race.  Let  us  get  an  American  revenue  as  we  have 
got  an  American  empire.  English  privileges  have 
made  it  all  that  it  is  ;  English  privileges  •  alone  will 
make  it  all  it  can  be. 

In  full  confidence  of  this  unalterable  truth,  I  now 
(^quod  felix  faustumque  sit!^  lay  the  first  stone  of  the 
Temple  of  Peace  ;  and  I  move  you,  — 

"  That  the  colonics  and  plantations  of  Great  Brit- 
ain in  North  America,  consisting  of  fourteen  separate 
governments,  and  containing  two  millions  and  up- 
wards of  free  inhabitants,  have  not  had  the  liberty 
and  privilege  of  electing  and  sending  any  knights  and 
burgesses,  or  others,  to  represent  them  in  the  high 
coui't  of  Parliament." 

Upon  this  resolution  the  previous  question  waa 
put  and  carried :  for  the  previous  question,  270 ; 
against  it,  78. 


As  the  propositions  were  opened  separately  in  the 
body  of  the  speech,  the  reader  perhaps  may  wish  to 
see  the  whole  of  them  together,  in  the  form  in  which 
they  were  moved  for. 

"  Moved, 

"  That  the  colonies  and  plantations  of  Great  Brit- 
ain in  North  America,  consisting  of  fourteen  separate 
governments,  and  containing  two  millions  and  up- 
wards of  free  inhabitants,  have  not  had  the  liberty 
and  privilege  of  electing  and  sending  any  knights 


SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION    WITH    AMERICA.         183 

and  burgesses,  or  others,  to  represent  them  in  the 
high  conrt  of  Parliament." 

"  That  the  said  colonies  and  plantations  have  been 
made  liable  to,  and  bounden  by,  several  subsidies, 
payments,  rates,  and  taxes,  given  and  granted  by 
Parliament,  though  the  said  coloiiies  and  plantations 
have  not  their  knights  and  burgesses  in  the  said  high 
coiu't  of  Parliament;  of  their  own  election,  to  repre- 
sent the  condition  of  their  country;  hy  lack' whereof 
they  have  been  oftentimes  touched  and  grieved,  hy  subsi- 
dies, given,  granted,  and  assented  to,  in  the  said  court, 
in  a  manner  prejudicial  to  the  common  tvealth,  quietness, 
rest,  and  peace  of  the  subjects  inhabiting  within  tha 
same." 

"  That,  from  the  distance  of  the  said  colonies,  and 
from  other  circumstances,  no  method  hath  hitherto 
been  devised  for  procuring  a  representation  in  Parlia- 
ment for  the  said  colonies." 

"  That  each  of  the  said  colonies  hath  within  itself 
a  body,  chosen,  in  part  or  in  the  whole,  by  the  free- 
men, freeholders,  or  other  free  inhabitants  thereof, 
commonly  called  the  General  Assembly,  or  General 
Court,  with  powers  legally  to  raise,  levy,  and  assess, 
according  to  the  several  usages  of  such  colonies,  du- 
ties and  taxes  towards  defraying  all  sorts  of  public 
services."  * 

"  That  the  said  general  assemblies,  general  courts, 
or  other  bodies  legally  qualified  as  aforesaid,  have  at 
sundry  times  freely  granted  several  large  subsidies 

*  The  first  four  motions  and  the  last  had  the  previous  question 
put  on  them.     The  otlicrs  were  negatived. 

The  words  in  Italics  were,  by  an  amendment  that  was  carried,  left 
out  of  the  motion ;  which  will  apjiear  in  the  journals,  though  it  is 
not  the  practice  to  insert  such  amendments  in  the  votes. 


184         SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA. 

and  public  aids  for  his  Majesty's  service,  according 
to  their  abilities,  when  required  thereto  by  letter 
from  one  of  his  Majesty's  principal  Secretaries  of 
State ;  and  that  their  right  to  grant  the  same,  and 
their  cheerfulness  and  sufficiency  in  the  said  grants, 
have  been  at  sundry  times  acknowledged  by  Par- 
liament." 

"  That  it  hath  been  found  by  experience,  that  the 
manner  of  granting  the  said  supplies  and  aids  by  the 
said  general  assemblies  hath  been  more  agreeable  to 
the  inhabitants  of  the  said  colonies,  and  more  bene- 
ficial and  conducive  to  the  public  service,  than  the 
mode  of  giving  and  granting  aids  and  subsidies  in 
Parliament,  to  be  raised  and  paid  in  the  said  colo- 
nies." 

"  That  it  may  be  proper  to  repeal  an  act,  made  in 
the  seventh  year  of  the  reign  of  his  present  Majesty,  in- 
tituled, '  An  act  for  granting  certain  duties  in  the  Brit- 
ish colonies  and  plantations  in  America ;  for  allowing 
a  drawback  of  the  duties  of  customs,  upon  the  expor- 
tation from  this  kingdom,  of  coffee  and  cocoa-nuts,  of 
the  produce  of  the  said  colonies  or  plantations ;  for 
discontinuing  the  drawbacks  payable  on  China  earth- 
en ware  exported  to  America ;  and  for  more  effectu- 
ally preventing  the  clandestine  running  of  goods  in 
the  said  colonies  and  plantations.'  " 

"  That  it  may  be  proper  to  repeal  an  act,  made  in  the 
fourteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  his  present  Majesty,  in- 
tituled, '  An  act  to  discontinue,  in  such  manner  and 
for  such  time  as  are  therein  mentioned,  the  landing 
and  discharging,  lading  or  shipping,  of  goods,  wares, 
and  merchandise,  at  the  town  and  within  the  harbor 
of  Boston,  in  the  province  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  in 
North  America.' " 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION  WITH   AMERICA.         185 


(C 


That  it  may  be  proper  to  repeal  an  act,  made  in  the 
fourteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  his  present  Majesty,  in- 
tituled, '  An  act  for  the  impartial  administration  of  jus- 
tice, in  the  cases  of  persons  questioned  for  any  acts  done 
by  them,  in  the  execution  of  the  law,  or  for  the  sup- 
pression of  riots  and  tumults,  in  the  province  of  the 
Massachusetts  Bay,  in  New  England.'  " 

"  That  it  may  be  proper  to  repeal  an  act,  made  in 
the  fourteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  his  present  Majesty, 
intituled, '  An  act  for  the  better  regulating  tlio  govern- 
ment of  the  province  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay,  in 
New  England.'  " 

"  Tliat  it  may  be  proper  to  explain  and  amend  an 
act,  made  in  the  thirty-fifth  year  of  the  reign  of  King 
Henry  the  Eighth,  intituled,  '  An  act  for  the  trial  of 
treasons  committed  out  of  the  king's  dominions.'  " 

"  Tliat,  from  the  time  when  the  general  assem- 
bly, or  general  court,  of  any  colony  or  plantation  in 
North  America,  shall  liave  appointed,  by  act  of  as- 
sembly duly  confirmed,  a  settled  salary  to  tlic  offices 
of  the  chief  justice  and  other  judges  of  the  superior 
courts,  it  may  be  proper  that  the  said  chief  justice 
and  other  judges  of  tlie  superior  courts  of  such  col- 
ony shall  hold  his  and  their  office  and  offices  during 
their  good  behavior,  and  shall  not  be  removed  there- 
from, but  when  the  said  removal  shall  bo  adjudged 
by  his  Majesty  in  council,  upon  a  hearing  on  com- 
plaint from  the  general  assembly,  or  on  a  complaint 
from  the  governor,  or  the  council,  or  the  liouse  of 
representatives,  severally,  of  the  colony  in  which  the 
said  chief  justice  and  other  judges  have  exercised  the 
said  offices." 

"  That  it  may  be  proper  to  regulate  the  courts  of 
admiralty  or  vice-admiralty,  autliorized  by  tlic  15th 


186        SPEECH    ON    CONCILIATION   WITH    AMERICA. 

chapter  of  tlie  4th  George  the  Third,  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  make  the  same  more  commodious  to 
those  who  sue  or  are  sued  in  the  said  courts ;  and 
to  i^rovide  for  the  more  decent  maintenance  of  the  judges 
of  the  sameJ^ 


LETTER 


TO 


JOHN  FARR  AND  JOHN  HARRIS,  Esqes., 

SHERIFFS   OF   THE   CITY   OP   BRISTOL, 


ON  THE 


AFFAIRS    OF    AMERICA. 


1777. 


LETTEE. 


GEIn'TLEMEN,  — I  have  the  honor  of  sending 
you  the  two  last  acts  which  have  been  passed 
witli  regard  to  the  troiiblea  in  America.  These  acts 
are  similar  to  all  the  rest  which  have  been  made  on 
the  same  subject.  They  operate  by  the  same  princi- 
ple, and  they  are  derived  from  the  very  same  policy. 
I  think  they  complete  the  number  of  this  sort  of  stat- 
utes to  nine.  It  affords  no  matter  for  very  pleasing 
reflection  to  observe  that  our  subjects  diminish  as  our 
laws  increase. 

If  I  have  the  misfortune  of  differing  with  some  of 
my  fellow-citizens  on  this  great  and  arduous  subject, 
it  is  no  small  consolation  to  me  that  I  do  not  differ 
from  you.  With  you  I  am  perfectly  united.  We  are 
heartily  agreed  in  our  detestation  of  a  civil  war.  We 
have  ever  expressed  the  most  unqualified  disapproba- 
tion of  all  the  steps  which  have  led  to  it,  and  of  all 
those  which  tend  to  prolong  it.  And  I  have  no  doubt 
that  we  feel  exactly  the  same  emotions  of  grief  and 
shame  on  all  its  miserable  consequences,  whether 
they  appear,  on  the  one  side  or  the  other,  in  the 
shape  of  victories  or  defeats,  of  capturcrs  made  from 
the  English  on  the  continent  or  from  the  English  in 
these  islands,  of  legislative  regulations  which  sub- 
vert the  liberties  of  our  brethren  or  which  under- 
mine our  own. 

Of  the  first  of  these  statutes  (that  for  the  letter  of 


190  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL. 

marque)  I  shall  say  little.  Exceptionable  as  it  may 
be,  and  as  I  think  it  is  in  some  particulars,  it  seems 
the  natural,  perhaps  necessary,  result  of  the  measures 
we  have  taken  and  the  situation  we  are  in.  The  other 
(for  a  partial  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus)  ap- 
pears to  me  of  a  much  deeper  malignity.  During  its 
progress  through  the  House  of  Commons,  it  has  been 
amended,  so  as  to  express,  more  distinctly  than  at  first 
it  did,  the  avowed  sentiments  of  those  who  framed  it ; 
and  the  main  ground  of  my  exception  to  it  is,  because 
it  does  express,  and  does  carry  into  execution,  purposes 
which  appear  to  me  so  contradictory  to  all  the  princi- 
ples, not  only  of  the  constitutional  policy  of  Great 
Britain,  but  even  of  that  species  of  hostile  justice 
which  no  asperity  of  war  wholly  extinguishes  in  the 
minds  of  a  civilized  people. 

It  seems  to  have  in  view  two  capital  objects :  the 
first,  to  enable  administration  to  confine,  as  long  as  it 
shall  think  proper,  those  whom  that  act  is  pleased  to 
qualify  by  the  name  of  inrates.  Those  so  qualified  I 
understand  to  be  the  commanders  and  mariners  of 
such  privateers  and  ships  of  war  belonging  to  the 
colonies  as  in  the  course  of  this  unhappy  contest  may 
fall  into  the  hands  of  the  crown.  They  are  therefore 
to  be  detained  in  prison,  imder  the  criminal  descrip- 
tion of  piracy,  to  a  future  trial  and  ignominious  pun- 
ishment, whenever  circumstances  shall  make  it  con- 
venient to  execute  vengeance  on  them,  under  the 
color  of  that  odious  and  infamous  offence. 

To  this  first  purpose  of  the  law  I  have  no  small 
dislike,  because  the  act  does  not  (as  all  laws  and  all 
equitable  transactions  ought  to  do)  fairly  describe  its 
object.  The  persons  who  make  a  naval  war  upon  us, 
in  consequence  of  the  present  troubles,  may  be  rebels ; 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  191 

but  to  call  and  treat  them  as  pirates  is  confounding 
not  only  the  natural  distinction  of  things,  but  the 
order  of  crimes,  —  which,  whether  bj  putting  them 
from  a  higher  part  of  the  scale  to  the  lower  or  from 
the  lower  to  the  higher,  is  never  done  without  dan- 
gerously disordering  the  whole  frame  of  jurispru- 
dence. Though  piracy  may  be,  in  the  eye  of  the  law, 
a  less  offence  than  treason,  yet,  as  both  arc,  in  effect, 
punished  with  the  same  death,  the  same  forfeiture, 
and  the  same  corruption  of  blood,  I  never  would  take 
from  any  fellow-creature  whatever  any  sort  of  advan- 
tage which  he  may  derive  to  his  safety  from  the  pity 
of  mankind,  or  to  his  reputation  from  their  general 
feelings,  by  degrading  his  offence,  when  I  cannot  soft- 
en his  punishment.  The  general  sense  of  mankind 
tells  me  that  those  offences  which  may  possibly  arise 
from  mistaken  virtue  are  not  in  tlie  class  of  infamous 
actions.  Lord  Coke,  the  oracle  of  the  English  law, 
conforms  to  that  general  sense,  where  he  says  that 
"  those  things  which  are  of  the  highest  criminality 
may  be  of  the  least  disgrace."  The  act  prepares  a 
sort  of  masked  proceeding,  not  honorable  to  the  jus- 
tice of  the  kingdom,  and  by  no  means  necessary  for 
its  safety.  I  cannot  enter  into  it.  If  Lord  Balme- 
rino,  in  the  last  rebellion,  had  driven  off  the  cattle  of 
twenty  clans,  1  should  have  thought  it  would  have 
been  a  scandalous  and  low  juggle,  utterly  unworthy 
of  the  manliness  of  an  English  judicature,  to  have 
tried  him  for  felony  as  a  stealer  of  cows. 

Besides,  I  must  honestly  tell  you  that  I  could  not 
vote  for,  or  countenance  in  any  way,  a  statute  which 
stigmatizes  with  tlie  crime  of  piracy  these  men  whom 
an  act  of  Parliament  had  previously  put  out  of  the 
protection  of  the  law.     AVlien  the  legislature  of  this 


192  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL. 

kingdom  had  ordered  all  their  ships  and  goods,  for 
the  mere  ncw-crcatcd  offence  of  exercising  trade,  to 
be  divided  as  a  spoil  among  the  seamen  of  the  navy, 
—  to  consider  the  necessary  reprisal  of  an  unhappy, 
proscribed,  interdicted  people,  as  the  crime  of  piracy, 
would  have  appeared,  in  any  other  legislature  than 
ours,  a  strain  of  the  most  insulting  and  most  unnatu- 
ral cruelty  and  injustice.  I  assure  you  I  never  re- 
member to  have  heard  of  anything  like  it  in  any  time 
or  country. 

The  second  professed  purpose  of  the  act  is  to  detain 
in  England  for  trial  those  who  shall  commit  high  trea- 
son in  America. 

That  you  may  be  enabled  to  enter  into  the  true 
spirit  of  the  present  law,  it  is  necessary,  Gentlemen,  to 
apprise  you  that  there  is  an  act,  made  so  long  ago  as 
in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  before  the  existence 
or  thought  of  any  English  colonies  in  America,  for 
the  trial  in  this  kingdom  of  treasons  committed  out 
of  the  realm.  In  the  year  1769  Parliament  thought 
proper  to  acquaint  the  crown  with  their  construction 
of  that  act  in  a  formal  address,  wherein  they  entreated 
his  Majesty  to  cause  persons  charged  witli  high  trea- 
son in  America  to  be  brought  into  this  kingdom  for 
trial.  By  this  act  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  so  construed 
and  so  applied^  almost  all  that  is  substantial  and  bene- 
ficial in  a  trial  by  jury  is  taken  away  from  the  subject 
in  the  colonies.  This  is,  however,  saying  too  little  ;  for 
to  try  a  man  under  that  act  is,  in  effect,  to  condemn 
nim  unheard.  A  person  is  brought  hither  in  the 
dungeon  of  a  ship's  hold ;  thence  he  is  vomited  into 
a  dungeon  on  land,  loaded  with  irons^  unfurnished 
with  money,  unsupported  by  friends,  three  thousand 
miles  from  all  means  of  calling  upon  or  confronting 


LETTER   TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  193 

evidence,  wliere  no  one  local  circumstance  that  tends 
to  detect  perjury  can  possibly  be  judged  of;  —  such 
a  person  may  be  executed  according  to  form,  but  he 
can  never  be  tried  according  to  justice. 

I  therefore  could  never  reconcile  myself  to  the  bill 
I  send  you,  which  is  expressly  provided  to  remove  all 
inconveniences  from  the  establishment  of  a  mode  of 
trial  wdiich  has  ever  appeared  to  me  most  unjust  and 
most  unconstitutional.  Far  from  removing  the  diffi- 
culties which  impede  the  execution  of  so  mischievous 
a  project,  I  would  heap  new  difficulties  upon  it,  if  it 
were  in  my  power.  All  the  ancient,  honest,  juridical 
principles  and  institutions  of  England  are  so  many 
clogs  to  check  and  retard  the  headlong  course  of  vio- 
lence and  oppression.  They  were  invented  for  this 
one  good  purpose,  that  what  was  not  just  should  not 
be  convenient.  Convinced  of  this,  I  would  leave 
things  as  I  found  them.  The  old,  cool-headed,  gen- 
eral law  is  as  good  as  any  deviation  dictated  by  pres- 
ent heat. 

I  could  see  no  fair,  justifiable  expedience  pleaded 
to  favor  this  new  suspension  of  the  liberty  of  the  sub- 
ject. If  the  English  in  the  colonies  can  support  the 
iitdependency  to  which  they  have  been  unfortunately 
driven,  I  suppose  nobody  has  such  a  fanatical  zeal  for 
the  criminal  justice  of  Henry  the  Eighth  that  he  will 
contend  for  executions  which  must  be  retaliated  ten- 
fold on  his  own  friends,  or  who  has  conceived  so 
strange  an  idea  of  English  dignity  as  to  think  the 
defeats  in  America  compensated  by  the  triumphs  at 
Tyburn.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the  colonies  are  re- 
duced to  the  obedience  of  the  crown,  there  must  be, 
under  that  authority,  tribunals  in  the  country  itself 
fully  competent  to  administer  justice  on  all  offiinders 

VOL.    II.  13 


194  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF    BRISTOL. 

But  if  there  are  not,  and  that  we  must  suppose  a 
thing  so  humiliating  to  our  government  as  that  all 
this  vast  continent  should  unanimously  concur  in 
thinking  that  no  ill  fortune  can  convert  resistance  to 
the  royal  authority  into  a  criminal  act,  we  may  call 
the  effect  of  our  victory  peace,  or  obedience,  or  what 
we  will,  but  the  war  is  not  ended  ;  the  hostile  mind 
continues  in  full  vigor,  and  it  continues  under  a 
worse  form.  If  your  peace  be  nothing  more  than  a 
sullen  pause  from  arms,  if  their  quiet  be  nothing  but 
the  meditation  of  revenge,  where  smitten  pride  smart- 
ing from  its  wounds  festers  into  new  rancor,  neither 
the  act  of  Henry  the  Eighth  nor  its  handmaid  of  this 
reign  will  answer  any  wise  end  of  policy  or  justice. 
For,  if  the  bloody  fields  which  they  saw  and  felt  are 
not  sufficient  to  subdue  the  reason  of  America,  (to 
use  the  expressive  phrase  of  a  great  lord  in  office,)  it 
is  not  the  judicial  slaughter  which  is  made  in  another 
hemisphere  against  their  universal  sense  of  justice 
that  will  ever  reconcile  them  to  the  British  govern- 
ment. 

I  take  it  for  granted.  Gentlemen,  that  we  sympa- 
thize in  a  proper  horror  of  all  punishment  further 
than  as  it  serves  for  an  example.  To  whom,  then, 
does  the  example  of  an  execution  in  England  for  this 
American  rebellion  apply  ?  Remember,  you  are  told 
every  day,  that  the  present  is  a  contest  between  the 
two  countries,  and  that  we  in  England  are  at  war 
for  our  own  dignity  against  our  rebellious  children. 
Is  this  true  ?  If  it  be,  it  is  surely  among  such  rebel- 
lious children  that  examples  for  disobedience  should 
be  made,  to  be  in  any  degree  instructive :  for  who 
ever  thought  of  teaching  parents  their  duty  by  an  ex- 
ample from  the  punishment  of  an  undutiful  son  ?    As 


LETTER   TO    THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  195 

well  might  the  execution  of  a  fugitive  negro  in  the 
plantations  be  considered  as  a  lesson  to  teach  masters 
humanity  to  their  slaves.  Such  executions  may,  in- 
deed, satiate  our  revenge ;  they  may  harden  our  hearts, 
and  puff  us  up  with  pride  and  arrogance.  Alas  !  this 
is  not  instruction. 

If  anything  can  be  drawn  from  such  examples  by  a 
parity  of  the  case,  it  is  to  show  how  deep  their  crime 
and  how  heavy  their  punishment  will  be,  who  shall  at 
any  time  dare  to  resist  a  distant  power  actually  dis- 
posing of  their  property  without  their  voice  or  consent 
to  the  disposition,  and  overturning  their  franchises 
without  charge  or  hearing.  God  forbid  that  England 
should  ever  read  this  lesson  written  in  tiie  blood  of 
any  of  her  offspring ! 

War  is  at  present  carried  on  between  the  king's 
natural  and 'foreign  troops,  on  one  side,  and  the  Eng- 
lish in  America,  on  the  other,  upon  the  usual  footing 
of  other  wars  ;  and  accordingly  an  exchange  of  pris- 
oners has  been  regularly  made  from  the  beginning. 
If,  notwithstanding  this  hitherto  equal  procedure, 
upon  some  prospect  of  ending  the  war  with  success 
(which, however, may  be  delusive)  administration  pre- 
pares to  act  against  those  as  traitors  who  remain  in 
their  hands  at  the  end  of  the  troubles,  in  my  opinion 
we  shall  exhibit  to  the  world  as  indecent  a  piece  of 
injustice  as  ever  civil  fury  has  produced.  If  the  pris- 
oners who  have  been  exchanged  have  not  by  that 
exchange  been  virtually  pardoned,  the  cartel  (whether 
avowed  or  understood)  is  a  cruel  fraud  ;  for  you  have 
received  the  life  of  a  man,  and  you  ought  to  return 
a  life  for  it,  or  there  is  no  parity  or  fairness  in  the 
transaction. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  admit  that  they  who  are 


196  LETTER    TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF    BRISTOL, 

actually  exchanged  are  pardoned,  but  contend  that 
jou  may  justly  reserve  for  vengeance  those  who 
remain  unexchanged,  then  this  unpleasant  and  un- 
handsome consequence  will  follow :  that  you  judge 
of  the  delinquency  of  men  merely  by  the  time  of 
their  guilt,  and  not  by  the  hcinousness  of  it ;  and 
you  make  fortune  and  accidents,  and  not  the  moral 
qualities  of  human  action,  the  rule  of  your  justice. 

These  strange  incongruities  must  ever  perplex 
those  who  confound  the  unhappiness  of  civil  dissen- 
sion with  the  crime  of  treason.  Whenever  a  rebel- 
lion really  and  truly  exists,  which  is  as  easily  known 
in  fact  as  it  is  difficult  to  define  in  words,  government 
has  not  entered  into  such  military  conventions,  but 
has  ever  declined  all  intermediate  treaty  whiiih  should 
put  rebels  in  possession  of  the  law  of  nations  with  re- 
gard to  war.  Commanders  would  receive  no  benefits 
at  their  hands,  because  they  could  make  no  return  for 
them.  Who  has  ever  heard  of  capitulation,  and  pa- 
role of  honor,  and  exchange  of  prisoners  in  the  late 
rebellions  in  this  kingdom  ?  The  answer  to  all  de- 
mands of  that  sort  was,  "  We  can  engage  for  nothing  ; 
you  are  at  the  king's  pleasure."  We  ought  to  remem- 
ber, that,  if  our  present  enemies  be  in  reality  and 
truth  rebels,  the  king's  generals  have  no  right  to  re- 
lease them  upon  any  conditions  whatsoever  ;  and  they 
are  themselves  answerable  to  the  law,  and  as  much  in 
want  of  a  pardon,  for  doing  so,  as  the  rebels  whom 
they  release. 

Lawyers,  I  know,  cannot  make  the  distinction  for 
which  I  contend  ;  because  they  have  their  strict  rule 
to  go  by.  But  legislators  ought  to  do  what  lawyers 
cannot ;  for  they  have  no  other  rules  to  bind  them 
but  the  great  principles  of  reason  and  equity  and  the 


LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF    BRISTOL.  197 

general  sense  of  mankind  These  they  are  hound  to 
obey  and  follow,  and  rather  to  enlarge  and  enlighten 
law  by  tlie  liberality  of  legislative  reason  than  to  fetter 
and  bind  their  higher  capacity  by  the  narrow  construc- 
tions of  subordinate,  artificial  justice.  If  we  had  ad 
verted  to  this,  we  never  could  consider  the  convulsions 
of  a  great  empire,  not  disturbed  by  a  little  dissemi- 
nated faction,  but  divided  by  whole  communities  and 
provinces,  and  entire  legal  representatives  of  a  people, 
as  fit  matter  of  discussion  under  a  commission  of  Oyer 
and  Terminer,  It  is  as  opposite  to  reason  and  pru- 
dence as  it  is  to  humanity  and  justice. 

This  act,  proceeding  on  these  principles,  that  is, 
preparing  to  end  the  present  troubles  by  a  trial  of 
one  sort  of  hostility  under  the  name  of  piracy,  and  of 
another  by  the  name  of  treason,  and  executing  the 
act  of  Henry  the  Eighth  according  to  a  new  and  un- 
constitutional interpretation,  I  have  thought  evil  and 
dangerous,  even  though  the  instruments  of  effecting 
such  purposes  had  been  merely  of  a  neutral  quality. 

But  it  really  appears  to  me  that  the  means  which 
this  act  employs  are  at"  least  as  exceptionable  as  the 
end.  Permit  me  to  open  myself  a  little  upon  this 
subject;  because  it  is  of  importance  to  me,  when  I  am 
obliged  to  submit  to  the  power  witliout  acquiescing 
in  tlie  reason  of  an  act  of  legislature,  that  I  should 
justify  my  dissent  by  such  arguments  as  may  be  sup- 
posed to  have  weight  with  a  sober  man. 

The  main  operative  regulation  of  the  act  is  to  sus- 
pend the  Common  L;iw  and  the  statute  Habeas  Corpus 
(the  sole  securities  either  for  liberty  or  justice)  with 
reirard  to  all  those  who  have  been  out  of  tlic  realm, 
or  on  the  high  seas,  within  a  given  time.  The  rest  of 
tlie  people,  as  I  understand,  are  to  continue  as  they 
stood  before. 


198  LETTER    TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL. 

I  confess,  Gentlemen,  that  this  appears  to  me  as  bad 
in  the  principle,  and  far  worse  in  its  conseqvience,  than 
an  universal  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Coiyus  Act ; 
and  the  limiting  qualification,  instead  of  taking  out 
the  sting,  does  in  my  humble  opinion  sharpen  and 
envenom  it  to  a  greater  degree.  Liberty,  if  I  under- 
stand it  at  all,  is  a  general  principle,  and  the  clear 
right  of  all  tlie  subjects  within  the  realm,  or  of  none. 
Partial  freedom  seems  to  me  a  most  invidious  mode 
of  slavery.  But,  unfortunately,  it  is  the  kind  of  slavery 
the  most  easily  admitted  in  times  of  civil  discord  :  for 
parties  are  but  too  apt  to  forget  their  own  future  safety 
in  their  desire  of  sacrificing  their  enemies.  People 
without  much  difficulty  admit  the  entrance  of  that 
injustice  of  which  they  are  not  to  be  the  immediate  vic- 
tims. In  times  of  liigh  proceeding  it  is  never  the  fac- 
tion of  the  predominant  power  that  is  in  danger :  for 
no  tyranny  chastises  its  own  instruments.  It  is  the 
obnoxious  and  the  suspected  who  want  the  protection 
of  law ;  and  there  is  nothing  to  bridle  the  partial  vio- 
lence of  state  factions  but  this,  —  "that, whenever  an 
act  is  made  for  a  cessation  of  law  and  justice,  the 
whole  people  should  be  universally  subjected  to  the 
same  suspension  of  their  franchises."  The  alarm  of 
such  a  proceeding  would  then  be  universal.  It  would 
operate  as  a  sort  of  call  of  the  nation.  It  would  be- 
come every  man's  immediate  and  instant  concern  to 
be  made  very  sensible  of  the  absolute  necessity  of  this 
total  eclipse  of  liberty.  They  would  more  carefu  lly 
advert  to  every  renewal,  and  more  powerfully  resist 
it.  Tliese  great  determined  measures  are  not  com- 
monly so  dangerous  to  freedom.  They  are  marked 
with  too  strong  lines  to  slide  into  use.  No  plea,  nor 
pretence,  of  mconvenience  or  evil  examjyle  (wliicli  must 


LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL.  199 

in  their  nature  be  daily  and  ordinary  incidents)  can 
be  admitted  as  a  reason  for  such  mighty  operations. 
But  the  true  danger  is  when  liberty  is  nibbled  away, 
for  expedients,  and  by  parts.  The  Habeas  Corpus 
Act  supposes,  contrary  to  the  genius  of  most  other 
laws,  that  the  lawful  magistrate  may  see  particular 
men  with  a  malignant  eye,  and  it  provides  for  that 
identical  case.  But  when  men,  in  particular  descrip- 
tions, marked  oiit  by  the  magistrate  himself,  are  de- 
livei'cd  over  by  Parliament  to  this  possible  malignity, 
it  is  not  the  Habeas  Corpus  that  is  occasionally  sus- 
pended, but  its  spirit  that  is  mistaken,  and  its  princi- 
ple that  is  subverted.  Indeed,  nothing  is  security  to 
any  individual  but  the  common  interest  of  all. 

This  act,  therefore,  has  this  distinguished  evil  in  it, 
that  it  is  the  first  partial  suspension  of  the  Habeas 
Corpus  that  has  been  made.  The  precedent,  which 
is  always  of  very  great  importance,  is  now  estab- 
lished. For  the  first  time  a  distinction  is  made 
among  the  people  within  this  realm.  Before  this 
act,  every  man  putting  his  foot  on  English  ground, 
every  stranger  owing  only  a  local  and  temporary  al- 
legiance, even  negro  slaves  who  had  been  sold  in  the 
colonies  and  under  an  act  of  Parliament,  became  as 
free  as  every  other  man  who  breathed  the  same  air 
with  them.  Now  a  line  is  drawn,  which  may  be  ad- 
vanced further  and  further  at  pleasure,  on  the  same 
argument  of  mere  expedience  on  which  it  was  first 
described.  There  is  no  equality  among  us ;  we  are 
not  fellow-citizens,  if  the  hiariner  who  lands  on  the 
quay  docs  not  rest  on  as  firm  legal  ground  as  the 
merchant  who  sits  in  his  counting-house.  Other  laws 
may  injure  the  community ;  this  dissolves  it.  As 
things  now  stand,  every  man  in  the  West  Indies, 


200  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF    BRISTOL. 

every  one  inhabitant  of  tlu-cc  luiotfcnding  provinces 
on  the  continei:yt,  every  person  coming  from  the  East 
Indies,  every  gentleman  who  has  travelled  foi-  his 
health  or-  education,  every  mariner  who  has  navi- 
gated the  seas,  is,  for  no  other  offence,  under  a 
temporary  proscription.  Let  any  of  these  facts  (now 
become  presumptions  of  guilt)  be  proved  against  liim, 
and  the  bare  suspicion  of  the  crown  puts  him  out  of 
the  law.  It  is  even  by  no  means  clear  to  me  whether 
the  negative  proof  does  not  lie  upon  the  person  ap- 
prehended on  suspicion,  to  the  subversion  of  all  jus- 
tice. 

I  have  not  debated  against  this  bill  in  its  i)rogress 
through  the  House  ;  because  it  would  have  been  vain 
to  oppose,  and  impossible  to  correct  it.  It  is  some 
time  since  I  have  been  clearly  convinced,  that,  in  the 
present  state  of  things,  all  opposition  to  any  measures 
proposed  by  ministers,  where  the  name  of  America 
appears,  is  vain  and  frivolous.  You  may  be  sure 
that  I  do  not  speak  of  my  opposition,  which  in  all 
circumstances  must  be  so,  but  that  of  men  of  the 
greatest  wisdom  and  authority  in  the  nation.  Every- 
thing proposed  against  America  is  supposed  of  course 
to  be  in  favor  of  Great  Britain.  Good  and  ill  suc- 
cess arc  equally  admitted  as  reasons  for  persevering 
in  the  present  methods.  Several  very  prudent  and 
very  well-intentioned  persons  were  of  opinion,  that, 
during  the  prevalence  of  such  dispositions,  all  strug- 
gle rather  inflamed  than  lessened  the  distemper  of 
the  public  counsels.  Finding  such  resistance  to  be 
considered  as  factious  by  most  witliin  doors  and  by 
very  many  without,  I  cannot  conscientiously  support 
what  is  against  my  opinion,  nor  prudently  contend 
with  what   I   know   is   irresistible.     Preserving  my 


LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF    BRISTOL.  201 

principles  unshaken,  I  reserve  my  activity  for  ra- 
tional endeavors ;  and  I  hope  that  my  past  conduct 
has  given  sufficient  e^idence,  that,  if  I  am  a  single  day 
from  my  place,  it  is  not  owing  to  indolence  or  love 
of  dissipation.  The  slightest  hope  of  doing  good  is 
sufficient  to  recall  me  to  what  1  quitted  with  regret. 
In  declining  for  some  time  my  usual  strict  attend- 
ance, I  do  not  in  the  least  condemn  the  spirit  of  those 
gentlemen  who,  with  a  just  confidence  in  their  abili- 
'  ties,  (in  which  I  claim  a  sort  of  share  from  my  love 
and  admiration  of  them,)  were  of  opinion  that  their 
exertions  in  this  desperate  case  might  be  of  some  ser- 
vice. They  thought  that  by  contracting  tlie  sphere 
of  its  application  they  might  lessen  the  malignity  of 
an  evil  principle.  Perhaps  they  were  in  the  right. 
But  when  my  opinion  was  so  very  clearly  to  the  con- 
trary, for  the  reasons  I  have  just  stated,  I  am  sure 
my  attendance  would  have  been  ridiculous. 

I  must  add,  in  further  explanation  of  my  conduct, 
that,  far  from  softening  the  features  of  such  a  prin- 
ciple, and  thereby  removing  any  part  of  the  popular 
odium  or  natural  terrors  attending  it,  I  should  be 
sorry  that  anything  framed  in  contradiction  to  the 
spirit  of  our  Constitution  did  not  instantly  produce, 
in  fact,  the  grossest  of  the  evils  with  w^hich  it  was 
pregnant  in  its  nature.  Tt  is  by  lying  dormant  a 
long  time,  or  being  at  first  very  rarely  exercised, 
that  arbitrary  power  steals  upon  a  people.  On  the 
next  unconstitutional  act,  all  the  fashionable  world 
w411  be  ready  to  say,  "  Your  prophecies  are  ridicu- 
lous, your  fears  are  vain,  you  see  how  little  of  the 
mischiefs  which  you  formerly  foreboded  arc  come  to 
pass."  Thus,  Ijy  degrees,  that  artful  softening  of  all 
arbitrary  power,  the  alleged  infrequency  or  narrow 


202  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL. 

extent  of  its  operation,  will  be  received  as  a  sort  of 
aphorism,  —  and  Mr.  Hume  will  not  be  singular  in 
telling-  us,  that  the  felicity  of  mankind  is  no  more 
disturbed  by  it  than  by  earthquakes  or  thunder,  or 
the  other  more  unusual  accidents  of  Nature. 

The  act  of  which  I  speak  is  among  the  fruits  of  the 
American  war,  —  a  war  in  my  humble  opinion  produc- 
tive of  many  mischiefs,  of  a  kind  which  distinguish 
it  from  all  others.  Not  only  our  policy  is  deranged, 
and  our  empire  distracted,  but  our  laws  and  our  le- 
gislative spirit  a2)pear  to  have  been  totally  perverted 
by  it.  We  have  made  war  on  our  colonies,  not  by 
arms  only,  but  by  laws.  As  hostility  and  law  are  not 
very  concordant  ideas,  every  step  we  have  taken  in 
this  business  has  been  made  by  trampling  on  some 
maxim  of  justice  or  some  capital  principle  of  wise 
government.  What  precedents  were  established,  and 
what  principles  overturned,  (I  will  not  say  of  English 
privilege,  but  of  general  justice,)  in  the  Boston  Port, 
the  Massachusetts  Charter,  the  Military  Bill,  and  all 
that  long  array  of  hostile  acts  of  Parliament  by  which 
the  war  with  America  has  been  begun  and  supported  ! 
Had  the  principles  of  any  of  these  acts  been  first  ex- 
erted on  English  ground,  they  would  probably  have 
expired  as  soon  as  they  touched  it.  But  by  being 
removed  from  our  persons,  they  have  rooted  in  our 
laws,  and  the  latest  posterity  will  taste  the  fruits  of 
them. 

Nor  is  it  the  worst  effect  of  this  unnatural  conten- 
tion, that  our  laws  are  corrupted.  Whilst  mayiners 
remain  entire,  they  will  correct  the  vices  of  law,  and 
soften  it  at  length  to  their  own  temper.  But  we  have 
to  lament  that  in  most  of  the  late  proceedings  we  see 
very  few  traces  of  that  generosity,  humanity,  and  dig- 


LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL.  203 

nity  of  mind,  which  formerly  characterized  this  na- 
tion. War  suspends  the  rules  of  moral  obligation, 
and  what  is  long  suspended  is  in  danger  of  being 
totally  abrogated.  Civil  wars  strike  deepest  of  all 
into  the  manners  of  the  people.  They  yitiate  their 
politics ;  they  corrupt  their  morals  ;  they  pervert 
even  the  natural  taste  and  relish  of  equity  and  jus- 
tice. By  teaching  us  to  consider  our  fellow-citizens 
in  an  hostile  light,  the  whole  body  of  our  nation  be- 
comes gradually  less  dear  to  us.  The  very  names  of 
affection  and  kindred,  which  were  the  bond  of  char- 
ity whilst  we  agreed,  become  new  incentives  to  hatred 
and  rage  when  the  communiou  of  our  country  is  dis- 
solved. We  may  flatter  ourselves  that  wc  shall  not 
fall  into  this  misfortune.  But  we  have  no  charter  of 
exemption,  that  I  know  of,  from  the  ordinary  frailties 
of  our  nature. 

What  but  that  blindness  of  heart  which  arises  from 
the  frenzy  of  civil  contention  could  have  made  any 
persons  conceive  the  present  situation  of  the  British 
affairs  as  an  object  of  triumph  to  themselves  or  of 
congratulation  to  their  sovereign  ?  Nothing  surely 
could  be  more  lamentable  to  those  who  remember  the 
flourishing  days  of  this  kingdom  than  to  see  the  in- 
sane joy  of  several  unhappy  peoi)le,  amidst  the  sad 
spectacle  which  our  affairs  and  conduct  exhibit  to  the 
scorn  of  Europe.  We  behold  (and  it  seems  some 
people  rejoice  in  beholding)  our  native  land,  which 
Tised  to  sit  the  envied  arbiter  of  all  her  neighbors,  re- 
duced to  a  servile  dependence  on  their  mercy,  —  ac- 
quiescing in  assurances  of  friendship  which  she  does 
not  trust,  —  complaining  of  hostilities  which  she  dares 
not  resent,  —  deficient  to  her  allies,  lofty  to  her  sub- 
jects, and  submissive  to  her  enemies,  —  whilst  the 


204  LETTER   TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL. 

liberal  government  of  this  free  nation  is  supported  by 
the  hireling  sword  of  German  boors  and  vassals,  and 
three  millions  of  the  subjects  of  Great  Britani  are 
seeking  for  protection  to  English  privileges  in  the 
arms  of  Franco ! 

These  circumstances  appear  to  me  more  like  shock- 
ing prodigies  than  natural  changes  in  human  affairs. 
Men  of  firmer  minds  may  sec  them  without  stagger- 
ing or  astonishment.  Some  may  think  them  mat- 
ters of  congratulation  and  complimentary  addresses  ; 
but  I  trust  your  candor  will  bo  so  indulgent  to  my 
weakness  as  not  to  have  the  worse  opinion  of  me  for 
my  declining  to  participate  in  this  joy,  and  my  reject- 
ing all  share  Avhatsoever  in  such  a  triumph.  I  am 
too  old,  too  stiff  in  my  inveterate  partialities,  to  be 
ready  at  all  the  fashionable  evolutions  of  opinion.  I 
scarcely  know  how  to  adapt  my  mind  to  the  feelings 
with  which  the  Court  Gazettes  mean  to  impress  the 
people.  It  is  not  instantly  that  I  can  be  brought  to 
rejoice,  when  I  hear  of  the  slaughter  and  captivity 
of  long  lists  of  those  names  which  have  been  fiimiliar 
to  my  ears  from  my  infancy,  and  to  rejoice  that  they 
have  fiillen  under  the  sword  of  strangers,  whose  bar- 
barous appellations  I  scarcely  know  how  to  pronounce. 
The  glory  acquired  at  the  White  Plains  by  Colonel 
Rahl  has  no  charms  for  me,  and  I  fairly  acknowl- 
edge that  I  have  not  yet  learned  to  delight  in  find- 
ing Fort  Kniphausen  in  the  heart  of  the  British 
dominions. 

It  might  be  some  consolation  for  the  loss  of  our  old 
regards,  if  our  reason  were  enlightened  in  proportion 
as  our  honest  prejudices  are  removed.  Wanting  feel- 
ings for  the  honor  of  our  country,  we  might  tlien  in 
cold  blood  be  brought  to  think  a  little  of  our  interests 


LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF    BRISTOL.  205 

as  individual  citizens  and  our  private  conscience  as 
moral  agents. 

Indeed,  our  affairs  arc  in  a  bad  condition.  I  do  as- 
sure those  gentlemen  vrho  have  prayed  for  war,  and 
obtained  the  blessing  they  have  sought,  that  they  are 
at  this  instant  in  very  great  straits.  The  abused 
wealth  of  this  country  continues  a  little  longer  to  feed 
its  distemper.  As  yet  they,  and  their  German  allies 
of  twenty  hireling  states,  have  contended  only  with 
the  unprepared  strength  of  our  own  infant  colonie: 
But  America  is  not  subdued.  Not  one  unattacked 
village  which  was  originally  adverse  throughout  that 
vast  continent  has  yet  submitted  from  love  or  terror. 
You  have  the  ground  you  encamp  on,  and  you  have 
no  more.  The  cantonments  of  your  troops  and  your 
dominions  are  exactly  of  the  same  extent.  You  spread 
devastation,  but  you  do  not  enlarge  the  sphere  of  au- 
thority. 

The  events  of  this  war  are  of  so  much  greater  mag- 
nitude than  those  who  either  wished  or  feared  it  ever 
looked  for,  that  this  alone  ought  to  fill  eveiy  consid- 
erate mind  with  anxiety  and  diffidence.  Wise  men 
often  tremble  at  the  very  things  which  fill  the  thought- 
less with  security.  For  many  reasons  I  do  not  choose 
to  expose  to  public  view  all  the  particulars  of  the  state 
in  which  you  stood  with  regard  to  foreign  powers 
during  the  whole  course  of  the  last  year.  Whether 
you  are  yet  wholly  out  of  danger  from  them  is  more 
than  I  know,  or  than  your  rulers  can  divine.  But 
even  if  I  were  certain  of  my  safety,  I  could  not  easily 
forgive  those  who  had  brouglit  me  into  the  most 
dreadful  perils,  because  by  accidents,  unforeseen  by 
them  or  me,  I  have  escaped. 

Believe  me,  Grentlemen,  the  way  still  before  you  is 


206  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOx^. 

intricate,  dark,  and  full  of  perplexed  and  treaclierous 
mazes.  Those  who  think  they  have  the  clew  may 
lead  us  out  of  this  labyrintli.  We  may  trust  them  as 
amply  as  we  think  proper  ;  but  as  they  have  most 
certainly  a  call  for  all  the  reason  which  their  stock 
can  furnish,  why  should  we  think  it  proper  to  disturb 
its  operation  by  inflaming  their  passions  ?  I  may  be 
unable  to  lend  an  helping  hand  to  those  who  direct 
the  state ;  but  I  should  be  ashamed  to  make  myself 
one  of  a  noisy  multitude  to  halloo  and  hearten  them 
into  doubtful  and  dangerous  courses.  A  conscien- 
tious man  would  be  cautious  how  he  dealt  in  blood. 
He  would  feel  some  apprehension  at  being  called  to  a 
tremendous  account  for  engaging  in  so  deep  a  play 
without  any  sort  of  knowledge  of  the  game.  It  is  no 
excuse  for  presumptuous  ignorance,  that  it  is  directed 
by  insolent  passion.  The  poorest  being  that  crawls 
on  earth,  contending  to  save  itself  from  injustice  and 
oppression,  is  an  object  respectable  in  the  eyes  of  God 
and  man.  But  I  cannot  conceive  any  existence  un- 
der heaven  (which  in  the  depths  of  its  wisdom  tol- 
erates all  sorts  of  things)  that  is  more  truly  odious 
and  disgusting  than  an  impotent,  helpless  creature, 
without  civil  wisdom  or  military  skill,  without  a  con- 
sciousness of  any  other  qualification  for  power  but  liis 
servility  to  it,  bloated  with  pride  and  arrogance,  call- 
ing for  battles  which  he  is  not  to  fight,  contending 
for  a  violent  dominion  which  he  can  never  exercise, 
and  satisfied  to  be  himself  mean  and  miserable,  in  or- 
der to  render  others  contemptible  and  wretched. 

If  you  and  I  find  our  talents  not  of  the  great  and 
ruling  kind,  our  conduct,  at  least,  is  conformable  to 
our  faculties.  No  man's  life  pays  the  forfeit  of  our 
rashness.     No  desolate  widow  weeps  tears  of  blood 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  207 

over  onr  ignorance.  Scrupulons  and  sober  in  a  well- 
grounded  distrust  of  ourselves,  we  would  keep  in  the 
port  of  peace  and  security ;  and  perliaps  in  recom- 
mending to  others  something  of  the  same  difhdcnce, 
we  should  show  ourselves  more  charitable  to  their 
welfare  than  injurious  to  their  abilities. 

There  are  many  circumstances  in  the  zeal  shown 
for  ci\il  war  which  seem  to  discover  but  little  of  real 
magnanimity.  The  addressers  offer  their  own  per- 
sons, and  they  are  satisfied  with  hiring  Germans. 
They  promise  their  private  fortunes,  and  they  mort- 
gage their  country.  They  have  all  the  merit  of  vol- 
unteers, without  risk  of  person  or  charge  of  contribu- 
tion ;  and  when  the  unfeeling  arm  of  a  foreign  sol- 
diery pours  out  their  kindred  blood  like  water,  they 
exult  and  triumph  as  if  they  themselves  had  perform- 
ed some  notable  exploit,  I  am  really  ashamed  of 
the  fashionable  language  which  has  been  held  for 
some  time  past,  which,  to  say  the  best  of  it,  is  full  of 
levity.  You  know  that  I  allude  to  the  general  cry 
against  the  cowardice  of  the  Americans,  as  if  we  de- 
spised them  for  not  making  the  king's  soldiery  pur- 
chase the  advantage  they  have  obtained  at  a  dearer 
rate.  It  is  not.  Gentlemen,  it  is  not  to  respect  the 
dispensations  of  Providence,  nor  to  provide  any  de- 
cent retreat  in  the  mutability  of  human  affairs.  It 
leaves  no  medium  between  insolent  victory  and  infa- 
mous defeat.  It  tends  to  alienate  our  minds  further 
and  further  from  our  natural  regards,  and  to  make 
an  eternal  rent  and  schism  in  the  British  nation. 
Those  who  do  not  wish  for  such  a  separation  would 
not  dissolve  that  cement  of  reciprocal  esteem  and 
regard  which  can  alone  bind  together  the  parts  of 
this  great  fabric.     It  ought  to  be  our  wish,  as  it  is 


208  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF    BRISTOL. 

our  duty,  not  only  to  forbear  this  style  of  outrage 
ourselves,  but  to  make'  every  one  as  sensible  as  we 
can  of  tlie  impropriety  and  un worthiness  of  the  tem- 
pers-which  give  rise  to  it,  and  which  designing  men 
are  laboring  with  such  malignant  industry  to  diffuse 
amongst  us.  It  is  our  business  to  counteract  them, 
if  possible, —  if  possible,  to  awake  our  natural  regards, 
and  to  revive  the  old  partiality  to  tlie  English  name. 
"Without  something  of  this  kind  I  do  not  see  how  it 
is  ever  practicable  really  to  reconcile  with  those 
whose  affection,  after  all,  must  be  the  surest  hold  of 
our  government,  and  which  is  a  thousand  times  more 
worth  to  us  than  the  mercenary  zeal  of  all  the  cir- 
cles of  Germany. 

I  can  well  conceive  a  country  completely  overrun, 
and  miserably  wasted,  without  approaching  in  the 
least  to  settlement.  In  my  apprehension,  as  long  as 
English  government  is  attempted  to  be  supported  over 
Englishmen  by  the  sword  alone,  things  will  thus  con- 
tinue. I  anticipate  in  my  mind  the  moment  of  the 
final  triumph  of  foreign  military  force.  When  that 
hour  arrives,  (for  it  may  arrive,)  then  it  is  that  all  this 
mass  of  weakness  and  violence  will  appear  in  its  full 
light.  If  we  should  be  expelled  from  America,  the  de- 
lusion of  the  partisans  of  military  government  might 
still  continue.  They  might  still  feed  their  imagina- 
tions with  the  possible  good  consequences  which  might 
have  attended  success.  Nobody  could  prove  the  con 
trary  by  facts.  But  in  case  the  sword  should  do  all 
that  the  sword  can  do,  the  success  of  their  ai'ms  and  the 
defeat  of  their  policy  will  be  one  and  the  same  thing. 
You  will  never  see  any  revenue  from  America.  Some 
increase  of  the  means  of  corruption,  without  ease  of 
the  public  burdens,  is  the  very  best  that  can  happen. 


LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL.  209 

Is  it  for  this  that  we  are  at  war, —  and  in  such  a 
war  ? 

As  to  the  difficulties  of  laying  once  more  the  foun- 
dations of  that  government  which,  for  the  sake  of 
conquering  what  was  our  own,  has  been  volunta- 
rily and  wantonly  pulled  down  by  a  court  faction 
here,  I  tremble  to  look  at  them.  Has  any  of  these 
gentlemen  who  are  so  eager  to  govern  all  mankind 
shoAvn  himself  possessed  of  the  first  qualification 
towards  government,  some  knowledge  of  the  object, 
and  of  the  difficidties  which  occur  in  the  task  they 
have  undertaken  ? 

I  assure  you,  that,  on  the  most  prosperous  issue  of 
your  arms,  you  will  not  be  where  you  stood  when 
you  called  in  war  to  supply  the  defects  of  your  polit- 
ical establishment.  Nor  would  any  disorder  or  diso- 
bedience to  government  which  could  arise  from  the 
most  abject  concession  on  our  part  ever  equal  those 
which  will  be  felt  after  the  most  triumphant  vio- 
lence. You  have  got  all  the  intermediate  evils  of 
war  into  the  bargain. 

I  thhik  I  know  America, — if  I  do  not,  my  igno- 
rance is  incurable,  for  I  have  spared  no  pains  to 
understand  it, —  and  I  do  most  solemnly  assure  those 
of  my  constituents  who  put  any  sort  of  confidence  in 
my  industry  and  integrity,  that  everything  that  has 
been  done  there  has  arisen  from  a  total  misconcep- 
tion of  the  object :  that  our  means  of  originally  hold- 
ing America,  that  our  means  of  reconciling  with  it 
after  quarrel,  of  recovering  it  after  separation,  of 
keeping  it  after  victory,  did  depend,  and  must  de- 
pend, in  their  several  stages  and  periods,  upon  a  total 
renunciation  of  that  unconditional  submission  which 
has  taken  such  possession  of  the  minds  of  violent 

VOL.  II.  14 


210  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF    BRISTOL. 

men.  Tlie  whole  of  those  maxims  upon  which  we 
have  made  and  continued  this  war  must  be  aban- 
doned. Nothing,  indeed,  (for  I  would  not  deceive 
you,)  can  place  us  in  our  former  situation.  That 
hope  must  be  laid  aside.  But  there  is  a  difference 
between  bad  and  the  worst  of  all.  Terms  relative  to 
the  cause  of  the  war  ought  to  be  offered  by  the 
authority  of  Parliament.  An  arrangement  at  home 
promising  some  security  for  them  ought  to  be  made. 
By  doing  this,  without  the  least  impairing  of  our 
strength,  we  add  to  the  credit  of  our  moderation, 
which,  in  itself,  is  always  strength  more  or  less. 

I  know  many  have  been  taught  to  think  that  mod- 
eration in  a  case  like  this  is  a  sort  of  treason, —  and 
that  all  arguments  for  it  are  sufficiently  answered  by 
railing  at  rebels  and  rebellion,  and  by  charging  all 
the  present  or  future  miseries  which  we  may  suffer 
on  the  resistance  of  our  brethren.  But  I  would  wish 
them,  in  this  grave  matter,  and  if  peace  is  not  wholly 
removed  from  their  hearts,  to  consider  seriously,  first, 
that  to  criminate  and  recriminate  never  yet  was  the 
road  to  reconciliation,  in  any  difference  amongst  men. 
In  the  next  place,  it  would  be  right  to  reflect  that 
the  American  English  (whom  they  may  abuse,  if 
they  think  it  honorable  to  revile  the  absent)  can,  as 
things  now  stand,  neither  be  provoked  at  our  railing 
or  bettered  by  our  instruction.  All  communication 
is  cut  off  iDetween  us.  But  this  we  know  with  certain- 
ty, that,  though  we  cannot  reclaim  them,  we  may 
reform  ourselves.  If  measures  of  peace  are  neces- 
sary, they  must  begin  somewhere  ;  and  a  conciliatory 
temper  must  precede  and  prepare  every  plan  of  recon- 
ciliation. Nor  do  I  conceive  that  we  suffer  anything 
by  thus  regulating  our  own  minds.     We  are  not  dis- 


LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL.  211 

armed  by  being  disencumbered  of  our  passions.  De- 
claiming on  rebellion  never  added  a  bayonet  or  a 
charge  of  powder  to  your  military  force ;  but  I  am 
afraid  that  it  has  been  the  means  of  taking  up  many 
muskets  against  you. 

This  outrageous  language,  which  has  been  encour- 
aged and  kept  alive  by  every  art,  has  already  done 
incredible  mischief.  For  a  long  time,  even  amidst 
the  desolations  of  war,  and  the  insults  of  hostile  laws 
daily  accumulated  on  one  another,  the  American 
leaders  seem  to  have  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in 
bringing  up  their  people  to  a  declaration  of  total 
independence.  But  the  Court  Gazette  accomplished 
what  the  abettors  of  independence  had  attempted 
in  vain.  When  that  disingenuous  compilation  and 
strange  medley  of  railing  and  flattery  was  addu'bed 
as  a  proof  of  the  united  sentiments  of  the  people  of 
Great  Britain,  there  was  a  great  change  throughout 
all  America.  The  tide  of  popular  affection,  which 
had  still  set  towards  the  parent  country,  began  im- 
mediately to  turn,  and  to  flow  with  great  rapidity  in 
a  contrary  course.  Far  from  concealing  these  wild 
declarations  of  enmity,  the  author  of  the  celebrated 
pamphlet  which  prepared  the  minds  of  the  people 
for  independence  insists  largely  on  the  multitude 
and  the  spirit  of  these  addresses ;  and  ho  draws  an 
ara-ument  from  them,  wliich,  if  the  fact  wore  as  he 
supposes,  must  be  irresistible.  For  I  never  knew  a 
writer  on  the  theory  of  government  so  partial  to 
authority  as  not  to  allow  that  the  hostile  mind  of  the 
rulers  to  their  people  did  fully  justify  a  change  of 
government ;  nor  can  any  reason  whatever  bo  given 
why  one  poople  sliould  voluntarily  yield  any  degree 
of  preeminence  to  another  but  on  a  supposition  of 


212  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF    BRISTOL. 

great  affection  and  benevolence  towards  tliem.  Un- 
fortunately, your  rnlers,  trusting  to  other  tilings,  took 
no  notice  of  this  great  principle  of  connection.  From 
the  beginning  of  this  affair,  they  have  done  all  they 
could  to  alienate  your  minds  from  your  own  kin- 
dred ;  and  if  they  could  excite  hatred  enough  in  one 
of  the  parties  towards  the  other,  they  seemed  to  be 
of  opinion  that  they  had  gone  half  the  way  towards 
reconciling  the  quarrel. 

I  know  it  is  said,  that  your  kindness  is  only  alien- 
ated on  account  of  their  resistance,  and  therefore,  if 
the  colonies  surrender  at  discretion,  all  sort  of  regard, 
and  even  much  indulgence,  is  meant  towards  them 
in  future.  But  can  those  who  are  partisans  for 
continuing  a  war  to  enforce  such  a  surrender  be 
responsible  (after  all  that  has  passed)  for  such  a 
future  use  of  a  power  that  is  bound  by  no  compacts 
and  restrained  by  no  terror  ?  Will  they  tell  us  what 
they  call  indulgences  ?  Do  they  not  at  this  instant 
call  the  present  war  and  all  its  horrors  a  lenient 
and  merciful  proceeding  ? 

.  No  conqueror  that  I  ever  heard  of  has  professed 
to  make  a  cruel,  harsh,  and  insolent  use  of  his  con- 
quest. No !  The  man  of  the  most  declared  pride 
scarcely  dares  to  trust  his  own  heart  with  this  dread- 
ful secret  of  ambition.  But  it  will  appear  in  its 
time ;  and  no  man  who  professes  to  reduce  another 
to  the  insolent  mercy  of  a  foreign  arm  ever  had  any 
sort  of  good-will  towards  him.  The  profession  of 
kindness,  with  that  sword  in  his  hand,  and  that  de- 
mand of  surrender,  is  one  of  the  most  provoking  acts 
of  his  hostility.  I  shall  be  told  that  all  this  is  lenient 
as  against  rebellious  adversaries.  But  are  the  leaders 
of  their  faction  more  lenient  to  those  who  submit? 


LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL  213 

Lord  Howe  and  General  Howe  have  powers,  under 
an  act  of  Parliament,  to  restore  to  the  king's  peace 
and  to  free  trade  any  men  or  district  which  shall 
submit.  Is  this  done  ?  We  have  been  over  and  over 
informed  by  the  authorized  gazette,  that  the  city  of 
New  York  and  the  countries  of  Staten  and  Long 
Island  have  submitted  voluntarily  and  cheerfully,  and 
that  many  are  very  full  of  zeal  to  the  cause  of  admin- 
istration. Wei'c  they  instantly  restored  to  trade  ?  Are 
they  yet  restored  to  it  ?  Is  not  the  benignity  of  two 
commissioners,  naturally  most  humane  and  generous 
men,  some  way  fettered  by  instructions,  equally 
against  their  dispositions  and  the  spirit  of  Parliament- 
ary faith,  when  Mr.  Tryon,  vaunting  of  the  fidelity  of 
the  city  in  which  he  is  governor,  is  obliged  to  apply  to 
ministry  for  leave  to  protect  the  king's  loyal  subjects, 
and  to  grant  to  them,  not  the  disputed  rights  and  privi- 
leges of  freedom,  but  the  common  rights  of  men,  by 
the  name  of  graces?  Why  do  not  the  commissioners 
restore  them  on  the  spot  ?  AVere  they  not  named  as 
commissioners  for  that  express  purpose  ?  But  we  see 
well  enough  to  what  the  whole  leads.  The  trade  of 
America  is  to  be  dealt  out  in  jyrivate  indulgences  and 
graces, — tliatis,in  jobs  to  recompense  the  incendiaries 
of  war.  They  will  be  informed  of  the  proper  time  in 
which  to  send  out  their  merchandise.  From  a  nation- 
al, the  American  trade  is  tp  be  turned  into  a  personal 
monopoly,  and  one  set  of  merchants  are  to  be  re- 
warded for  the  pretended  zeal  of  which  another  set 
arc  the  dupes  ;  and  thus,  between  craft  and  credulity, 
the  voice  of  reason  is  stifled,  and  all  the  misconduct, 
all  the  calamities  of  the  war  are  covered  and  continued. 
If  I  l\ad  not  lived  long  enough  to  l)o  little  surprised 
at  anything,  I  should  have  been  in  some  degree  as- 


214  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF    BRISTOL. 

tonished  at  the  continued  rage  of  several  gentlemen, 
who,  not  satisfied  with  carrying  fire  and  sword  into 
America,  are  animated  nearly  with  the  same  fury 
against  those  neighbors  of  theirs  whose  only  crime  it 
is,  that  they  have  charitably  and  humanely  wished 
them  to  entertain  more  reasonable  sentiments,  and 
not  always  to  sacrifice  their  interest  to  their  passion. 
All  this  rage  against  unresisting  dissent  convinces  me, 
that,  at  bottom,  they  are  far  from  satisfied  they  are 
in  the  riglit.  For  what  is  it  they  would  have  ?  A 
war  ?  They  certainly  have  at  this  moment  the  bless- 
ing of  something  that  is  very  like  one  ;  and  if  the  war 
they  enjoy  at  present  be  not  sufficiently  hot  and  exten- 
sive, they  may  shortly  have  it  as  warm  and  as  spread- 
ing as  their  hearts  can  desire.  Is  it  the  force  of  the 
kingdom  they  callfor?  They  have  it  already;  and 
if  they  choose  to  fight  tlieir  battles  in  their  own  per- 
son, nobody  prevents  their  setting  sail  to  America  in 
the  next  transports.  Do  they  think  that  the  service 
is  stinted  for  want  of  liberal  supplies  ?  Indeed  they 
complain  without  reason.  The  table  of  the  House  of 
Commons  will  glut  them,  let  their  appetite  for  expense 
be  never  so  keen.  And  I  assure  them  further,  that 
those  who  think  with  them  in  the  House  of  Commons 
are  full  as  easy  in  tlie  control  as  they  are  liberal  in 
the  vote  of  these  expenses.  If  this  be  not  supply  or 
confidence  sufficient,  let  them  open  their  own  private 
purse-strings,  and  give,  from  what  is  left  to  them,  as 
largely  and  with  as  little  care  as  they  think  proper. 

Tolerated  in  their  passions,  let  them  learn  not  to 
persecute  the  moderation  of  their  fellow-citizens.  If 
all  the  world  joined  them  in  a  full  cry  against  rebel- 
lion, and  were  as  hotly  inflamed  against  the  whole 
theory  and  enjoyment  of  freedom   as  those  who  are 


LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF    BRISTOL.  215 

the  most  factious  for  servitude,  it  could  not,  in  my 
opinion,  answer  any  one  end  whatsoever  in  this  con- 
test. The  leaders  of  this  war  could  not  hire  (to  grat- 
ify their  friends)  one  German  more  than  they  do,  or 
inspire  him  with  less  feeling  for  the  persons  or  less 
value  for  the  privileges  of  their  revolted  brethren. 
If  we  all  adopted  their  sentiments  to  a  man,  their 
allies,  the  savage  Indians,  could  not  be  more  fero- 
cious than  they  are :  they  could  not  murder  one 
more  helpless  woman  or  child,  or  with  more  exqui- 
site refinements  of  cruelty  torment  to  death  one  more 
of  their  English  flesh  and  blood,  than  they  do  already. 
The  public  money  is  given  to  purchase  this  alliance ; 
—  and  they  have  their  bargain. 

They  are  continually  boasting  of  unanimity,  or 
calling  for  it.  But  before  this  unanimity  can  be 
matter  either  of  wish  or  congratulation,  we  ought 
to  be  pretty  sure  tliat  we  are  engaged  in  a  rational 
pursuit.  Frenzy  does  not  become  a  slighter  dis- 
temper on  account  of  the  number  of  those  who  may 
be  infect'd  with  it.  Delusion  and  weakness  produce 
not  one  mischief  the  less  because  they  are  universal. 
I  declare  that  I  cannot  discern  the  least  advantage 
which  could  accrue  to  us,  if  we  were  able  to  persuade 
our  colonies  that  they  had  not  a  single  friend  in  Great 
Britain.  On  the  contrary,  if  the  affections  and  opin- 
ions of  mankind  be  not  exploded  as  principles  of  con- 
nection, I  conceive  it  would  bo  happy  for  us,  if  they 
"were  taught  to  believe  that  there  was  even  a  formed 
American  party  in  England,  to  whom  they  could  al- 
ways look  for  support.  Happy  would  it  be  for  us,  if, 
in  all  tempers,  tliey  might  turn  tlicir  eyes  to  the  par- 
ent state,  so  that  their  very  turbulence  and  sedition 
should  find  vent  in  no  other  place  tlian  this  !    I  be- 


216  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL. 

liove  there  is  not  a  man  (except  those  who  prefer  the 
interest  of  some  paltry  faction  to  the  very  being  of 
their  country)  wlio  would  not  wish  that  the  Ameri- 
cans sliould  from  time  to  time  carry  many  points, 
and  even  some  of  them  not  quite  reasonable,  by  the 
aid  of  any  denomination  of  men  here,  rather  than 
they  should  be  driven  to  seek  for  protection  against 
the  fury  of  foreign  mercenaries  and  the  waste  of  sav- 
ages in  the  arms  of  France. 

When  any  community  is  subordinately  connected 
with  another,  the  great  danger  of  the  connection  is 
the  extreme  pride  and  self-complacency  of  the  supe- 
rior, which  in  all  matters  of  controversy  will  probably 
decide  in  its  own  favor.  It  is  a  powerful  corrective 
to  such  a  very  rational  cause  of  fear,  if  the  inferior 
body  can  be  made  to  believe  that  the  party  inclina- 
tion or  political  views  of  several  in  the  p)-incipal 
state  will  induce  them  in  some  degree  to  counteract 
this  blind  and  tyrannical  partiality.  There  is  no  dan- 
ger that  any  one  acquiring  consideration  or  power  in 
the  presiding  state  should  carry  this  leaning  to  the  in- 
ferior too  far.  Tlie  fault  of  human  nature  is  not  of 
that  sort.  Power,  in  whatever  hands,  is  rarely  guilty 
of  too  strict  limitations  on  itself.  But  one  groat  ad- 
vantage to  the  support  of  authority  attends  such  an 
amicable  and  protecting  connection:  that  tliose  wlio 
have  conferred  favors  obtain  influence,  and  from  tlie 
foresight  of  future  'events  can  persuade  men  who 
have  received  obligations  sometimes  to  return  tliem. 
Thus,  by  the  mediation  of  tliose  healing  principles, 
(call  them  good  or  evil,)  troublesome  discussions  are 
brought  to  some  sort  of  adjustment,  and  every  liot 
controversy  is  not  a  civil  war. 

But,  if  the  colonies  (to  bring  the  general  matter 


LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OP   BRISTOL.  217 

Home  to  us)  could  see  that  in  Great  Britain  the 
mass  of  the  people  is  melted  into  its  government,  and 
that  every  dispute  with  the  ministry  must  of  neces- 
sity be  always  a  quarrel  with  the  nation,  they  can 
stand  no  longer  in  tlie  equal  and  friendly  relation  of 
fellow-citizens  to  the  subjects  of  this  kingdom.  Hum- 
Die  as  tliis  relation  may  appear  to  some,  when  it  is 
once  broken,  a  strong  tie  is  dissolved.  Other  sort  of 
connections  will  be  souglit.  For  there  are  very  few 
in  the  world  who  will  not  prefer  an  useful  ally  to  an 
insolent  master. 

Such  discord  has  been  the  effect  of  the  unanimity 
into  wliicli  so  many  have  of  late  been  seduced  or  bul- 
lied, or  into  the  appearance  of  which  they  have  sunk 
through  mere  despair.  They  have  been  told  that 
their  dissent  from  violent  measures  is  an  encourage- 
ment to  rebellion.  Men  of  great  presumption  and 
little  knowledge  will  hold  a  language  which  is  con- 
tradicted by  the  wliole  course  of  history.  Cfeneral 
rebellions  and  revolts  of  an  whole  people  never  were 
encouraged,  now  or  at  any  time.  They  arc  always  pro- 
voked. But  if  this  unheard-of  doctrine  of  the  encour- 
agement of  rebellion  were  true,  if  it  were  true  that 
an  assurance  of  the  friendship  of  numbers  in  this 
country  towards  the  colonies  could  become  an  en-' 
couragement  to  them  to  break  off  all  connection  with 
it,  what  is  the  inference  ?  Does  anybody  seriously 
maintain,  that,  charged  with  my  share  of  the'  public 
councils,  I  am  obliged  not  to  resist  projects  which  I 
think  mischievous,  lest  men  who  suffer  should  be  en- 
couraged to  resist?  The  very  tendency  of  such  pro-, 
jccts  to  produce  rebellion  is  one  of  the  chief  reasons 
against  them.  Shall  that  reason  not  be  given  ?  Is  it, 
then,  a  rule,  that  uo  man  in  this  nation  shall  open  his 


218  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF    BRISTOL. 

moutli  in  favor  of  the  colonics,  shall  defend  their 
rights,  or  complain  of  their  sufferings,— or  when  war 
finally  breaks  out,  no  man  shall  express  his  desires  of 
peace  ?  Has  this  been  the  law  of  our  past,  oi-  is  it  to 
be  the  terms  of  our  future  connection  ?  Even  look- 
ing no  further  than  ourselves,  can  it  be  true  loyalty 
to  any  government,  or  true  patriotism  towards  any 
country,  to  degrade  their  solemn  councils  into  servile 
drawing-rooms,  to  flatter  their  pride  and  passions 
rather  than  to  enlighten  their  reason,  and  to  prevent 
them  from  being  cautioned  against  violence  lest  oth- 
ers should  be  encouraged  to  resistance  ?  By  such 
acquiescence  great  kings  and  mighty  nations  have 
been  undone  ;  and  if  any  are  at  this  day  in  a  perilous 
situation  from  rejecting  truth  and  listening  to  flat- 
tery, it  would  rather  become  theiri  to  reform  the 
errors  under  which  they  suffer  than  to  reproach 
those  who  forewarned  them  of  their  danger. 

But  the  rebels  looked  for  assistance  from  this  coun- 
try.— ^They  did  so,  in  the  beginning  of  this  controversy, 
most  certainly  ;  and  they  sought  it  by  earnest  suppli- 
cations to  government,  which  dignity  rejected,  and 
by  a  suspension  of  commerce,  which  the  wealth  of 
this  nation  enabled  you  to  despise.  Wlien  they  found 
that  neither  prayers  nor  menaces  had  any  sort  of 
weight,  but  that  a  firm  resolution  was  taken  to  reduce 
them  to  unconditional  obedience  by  a  military  force, 
they  came  to  the  last  extremity.  Despairing  of  us, 
they  trusted  in  themselves.  Not  strong  enough  them- 
selves, they  sought  succor  in  France.  In  proportion 
as  all  encouragement  here  lessened,  their  distance 
from  tliis  country  increased.  The  encouragement  is 
over  ;  the  alienation  is  complete. 

In  order  to  produce  this  favorite  unanimity  in  delu- 


LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL.  219 

sion,  and  to  prevent  all  possibility  of  a  return  to  our 
ancient  happy  concord,  arguments  for  our  continu- 
ance in  this  course  are  drawn  from  the  wretched  sit- 
uation itself  into  which  we  have  been  betrayed.  It  is 
said,  that,  being  at  war  with  the  colonies,  whatever  our 
sentiments  might  have  been  before,  all  ties  between 
us  are  now  dissolved,  and  all  the  policy  we  have  left 
is  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  government  to  reduce 
them.  On  the  principle  of  this  argument,  the  more 
mischiefs  we  suffer  from  any  administration,  the  more 
our  trust  in  it  is  to  be  confirmed.  Let  them  but  once 
get  us  into  a  war,  and  then  their  power  is  safe,  and  an 
act  of  oblivion  passed  for  all  their  misconduct. 

But  is  it  really  true  that  government  is  always  to 
be  'strengthened  with  the  instruments  of  war,  but 
never  furnished  with  the  means  of  peace  ?  In  former 
times,  ministers,  I  allow,  have  been  sometimes  driven 
by  the  popular  voice  to  assert  by  arms  the  national 
honor  against  foreign  powers.  But  the  wisdom  of 
the  nation  has  been  far  more  clear,  when  those  minis- 
ters have  been  compelled  to  consult  its  interests  by 
treaty.  We  all  know  that  the  sense  of  the  nation 
obliged  the  court  of  Charles  the  Second  to  abandon 
the  Dutch  war  :  a  war,  next  to  the  present,  the  most 
impolitic  which  we  ever  carried  on.  The  good  peo- 
ple of  England  considered  Holland  as  a  sort  of  depen- 
dency on  this  kingdom  ;  they  dreaded  to  drive  it  to 
the  protection  or  subject  it  to  the  power  of  France 
by  their  own  incjDnsiderate  hostility.  They  paid  but 
little  respect  to  the  court  jargon  of  that  day ;  nor 
were  they  inflamed  by  the  pretended  rivalship  of  the 
Dutch  in  trade,  —  by  the  massacre  at  Amboyna,  acted 
on  the  stage  to  provoke  the  public  vengeance,  —  nor 
by  declamations  against  the  ingratitude  of  the  United 


220  LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF  BRISTOL. 

Provinces  for  the  benefits  England  had  conferred  up- 
on them  in  their  infant  state.  They  were  not  moved 
from  their  evident  interest  by  all  these  arts  ;  nor  was 
it  enough  to  tell  them,  they  were  at  war,  that  they 
must  go  through  with  it,  and  that  the  cause  of  the 
dispute  was  lost  in  the  consequences.  The  people  of 
England  were  then,  as  they  are  now,  called  upon  to 
make  government  strong.  They  thought  it  a  great 
deal  better  to  make  it  wise  and  honest. 

Wlicn  I  was  amongst  my  constituents  at  the  last 
summer  assizes,  I  remember  that  men  of  all  descrip- 
tions did  then  express  a  very  strong  desire  for  peace, 
and  no  slight  hopes  of  attaining  it  from  the  commis- 
sion sent  out  by  my  Lord  Howe.  And  it  is  not  a 
little  remarkable,  that,  in  proportion  as  every  person 
showed  a  zeal  for  the  court  measures,  he  was  then 
earnest  in  circulating  an  opinion  of  the  extent  of  the 
supposed  powers  of  that  commission.  When  I  told 
them  that  Lord  Howe  had  no  powers  to  treat,  or  to 
promise  satisfaction  on  any  point  whatsoever  of  the 
controversy,  I  was  hardly  credited, — so  strong  and 
general  was  the  desire  of  terminating  tliis  war  by 
the  method  of  accommodation.  As  far  as  I  could 
discover,  this  was  the  temper  then  prevalent  through 
the  kingdom.  The  king's  forces,  it  must  be  ob- 
served, had  at  that  time  been  obliged  to  evacuate 
Boston.  The  superiority  of  the  former  campaign 
rested  wholly  with  the  colonists.  If  such  powers  of 
treaty  were  to  be  wished  whilst  success  was  very 
doubtful,  how  came  they  to  be  less  so,  since  his  ^faj- 
esty's  arms  have  been  crowned  with  many  consider- 
able advantages  ?  Have  these  successes  induced  us 
to  alter  our  mind,  as  thinking  the  season  of  victory 
not  the  time  for  treating  with  honor  or  advantage  ? 


LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL.  221 

"Whatever  changes  have  happened,  in  the  national 
character,  it  can  scarcely  be  our  wish  that  terms  of 
accommodation  never  should  be  proposed  to  our  en- 
emy, except  when  they  must  be  attributed  solely  to 
our  fears.  It  has  happened,  let  me  say  unfortu- 
nately, that  we  read  of  his  Majesty's  commission  for 
making  peace,  and  his  troops  evacuating  liis  last 
town  in  the  Thirteen  Colonics,  at  the  same  hour  and 
in  tlie  same  gazette.  It  was  still  more  unfortunate 
that  no  commission  went  to  America  to  settle  the 
troubles  there,  until  several  months  after  an  act  had 
been  passed  to  put  the  colonies  out  of  the  protection 
of  this  government,  and  to  divide  their  trading  prop- 
erty, without  a  possibility  of  restitution,  as  spoil 
among  the  seamen  of  the  navy.  The  most  abject 
submission  on  the  part  of  the  colonies  could  not  re- 
deem them.  There  was  no  man  on  that  whole  con- 
tinent, or  within  three  thousand  miles  of  it,  qualified 
by  law  to  follow  allegiance  with  protection  or  sub- 
mission with  pardon.  A  proceeding  of  this  kind  has 
no  example  in  history.  Independency,  and  independ- 
ency with  an  enmity,  (which,  putting  ourselves  out 
of  the  question,  would  bo  called  natural  and  much 
provoked,)  was  the  inevitable  consequence.  How 
this  came  to  pass  the  nation  may  be  one  day  in  an 
humor  to  inquire. 

All  the  attempts  made  this  session  to  give  fuller 
powers  of  peace  to  the  commanders  in  America  were 
stifled  by  the  fatal  confidence  of  victory  and  the  wild 
hopes  of  unconditional  submission.  Tlierc  was  a  mo- 
ment favorable  to  the  king's  arms,  wlicn,  if  any  pow- 
ers of  concession  had  existed  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  even  after  all  our  errors,  peace  in  all  proba- 
bility might  have  been  restored.    But  calamity  is  un- 


222  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL. 

happily  the  usual  season  of  reflection ;  and  the  pride 
of  men  will  not  often  suffer  reason  to  have  any  scope, 
until  it  can  be  no  longer  of  service. 

I  have  always  wished,  that  as  the  dispute  had  its 
apparent  origin  from  things  done  in  Parliament,  and 
as  the  acts  passed  there  had  provoked  the  war,  that 
the  foundations  of  peace  should  be  laid  in  Parliament 
also.  I  have  been  astonished  to  find  that  those 
whose  zeal  for  the  dignity  of  our  body  was  so  hot  as 
to  light  up  the  flames  of  civil  war  should  even  pub- 
licly declare  that  these  delicate  points  ought  to  be 
wholly  left  to  the  crown.  Poorly  as  I  may  be  thought 
affected  to  the  authority  of  Parliament,  I  shall  never 
admit  that  our  constitutional  rights  can  ever  become 
a  matter  of  ministerial  negotiation, 

I  am  charged  with  being  an  American.  If  warm 
affection  towards  those  over  whom  I  claim  any  share 
of  authority  be  a  crime,  I  am  guilty  of  this  charge. 
But  I  do  assure  you,  (and  they  who  know  me  publicly 
and  privately  will  bear  witness  to  me,)  that,  if  ever  one 
man  lived  more  zealous  than  another  for  the  suprem- 
acy of  Parliament  and  the  rights  of  this  imperial 
crown,  it  was  myself.  Many  others,  indeed,  might  be 
more  knowing  in  the  extent  of  the  foundation  of 
these  rights.  I  do  not  pretend  to  be  an  antiquary, 
a  lawyer,  or  qualified  for  the  chair  of  professor  in 
metaphysics.  I  never  ventured  to  put  your  solid  in- 
terests upon  speculative  grounds.  My  having  con 
stantly  declined  to  do  so  has  been  attributed  to  my 
incapacity  for  such  disquisitions  ;  and  I  am  inclined 
to  believe  it  is  partly  the  cause.  I  never  shall  be 
ashamed  to  confess,  that,  where  I  am  ignorant,  I  am 
diffident.  I  am,  indeed,  not  very  solicitous  to  clear 
myself  of  this  imputed  incapacity  ;  because  men  even 


LETTER   TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF  BRISTOL.  223 

less  conversant  than  I  am  in  this  kind  of  subtleties, 
and  placed  in  stations  to  which. I  ought  not  to  aspire, 
have,  by  the  mere  force  of  civil  discretion,  often  con- 
ducted the  affairs  of  great  nations  with  disthiguished 
felicity  and  glory. 

When  I  first  came  into  a  public  trust,  I  found 
your  Parliament  in  possession  of  an  unlimited  legisla- 
tive power  over  the  colonies,  I  could  not  open  the 
statute-book  without  seeing  the  actual  exercise  of  it, 
more  or  less,  in  all  cases  whatsoever.  This  posses- 
sion passed  with  me  for  a  title.  It  does  so  in  all  hu- 
man affairs.  No  man  examines  into  the  defects  of  his 
title  to  his  paternal  estate  or  to  his  established  gov- 
ernment. Indeed,  common  sense  taught  me  that  a 
legislative  authority  not  actually  limited  by  the  ex- 
press terms  of  its  foundation,  or  by  its  own  subse- 
quent acts,  cannot  have  its  powers  parcelled  out  by 
argumentative  distinctions,  so  as  to  enable  us  to  say 
that  here  they  can  and  there  they  cannot  bind.  No- 
body was  so  obliging  as  to  produce  to  me  any  record 
of  such  distinctions,  by  compact  or  otherwise,  either 
at  the  successive  formation  of  the  several  colonies  or 
during  the  existence  of  any  of  them.  If  any  gentle- 
men were  able  to  see  how  one  power  could  be  given 
up  (merely  on  abstract  reasoning)  without  giving  up 
the  rest,  I  can  only  say  that  they  saw  further  than  I 
could.  Nor  did  I  ever  presume  to  condemn  any  one 
for  being  clear-sighted  when  I  was  blind.  I  praise 
their  penetration  and  learning,  and  hope  that  their 
practice  has  been  correspondent  to  their  theory. 

I  had,  indeed,  very  earnest  wishes  to  keep  the  whole 
body  of  this  authority  perfect  and  entire  as  I  found 
it,  —  and  to  keep  it  so,  not  for  our  advantage  solely, 
but  principally  for  the  sake  of  those  on  whose  ac- 


224  LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF  BRISTOL. 

count  all  just  authority  exists :  I  mean  tlie  people  to 
be  governed.  For  I  thought  I  saw  that  many  cases 
might  well  happen  in  which  the  exercise  of  every 
power  comprehended  in  the  broadest  idea  of  legisla- 
ture miglit  become,  in  its  time  and  circumstances, 
not  a  little  expedient  for  the  peace  and  union  of  the 
colonies  amongst  themselves,  as  well  as  for  their  per- 
fect harmony  with  Great  Britain.  Thinking  so,  (per- 
haps erroneously,  but  being  honestly  of  that  opinion,) 
I  was  at  the  same  time  very  sure  that  the  authority 
of  which  I  was  so  jealous  could  not,  under  the  actual 
circumstances  of  our  plantations,  be  at  all  preserved 
in  any  of  its  members,  but  by  the  greatest  reserve  in 
its  application,  particularly  in  those  delicate  points 
in  which  the  feelings  of  mankind  are  the  most  irrita- 
ble. They  who  thought  otherwise  have  found  a  few 
more  difficulties  in  their  work  than  (I  hope)  they 
were  thoroughly  aware  of,  when  they  undertook  the 
present  business.  I  must  beg  leave  to  observe,  that 
it  is  not  only  the  invidious  branch  of  taxation  that 
will  be  resisted,  but  that  no  other  given  part  of  legis- 
lative rights  can  be  exercised,  without  regard  to  the 
general  opinion  of  those  who  are  to  be  governed. 
That  general  opinion  is  the  vehicle  and  organ  of  legis- 
lative omnipotence.  Without  this,  it  may  be  a  the- 
ory to  entertain  the  mind,  but  it  is  nothing  in  the 
direction  of  affairs.  The  completeness  of  the  legis- 
lative authority  of  Parliament  over  this  hingdoyn  is 
not  questioned  ;  and  yet  many  things  indubitably  in- 
cluded in  the  abstract  idea  of  that  power,  and  which 
carry  no  absolute  injustice  in  themselves,  yet  being 
contrary  to  the  opinions  and  feelings  of  the  people, 
can  as  little  be  exercised  as  if  Parliament  in  that 
case  had  been  jDossessed  of  no  right  at  all.     I  see  no 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  225 

abstract  reason,  wliicli  can  be  given,  why  the  same 
power  which  made  and  repealed  the  High  Commis- 
sion Court  and  the  Star-Chamber  might  not  revive 
them  again ;  and  these  courts,  warned  by  their  for- 
mer fate,  ]night  possibly  exercise  their  powers  with 
some  degree  of  justice.  But  the  madness  would  be 
as  unquestionable  as  the  competence  of  that  Parlia- 
ment which  should  attempt  such  things.  If  any- 
thing can  be  supposed  out  of  the  power  of  human 
legislature,  it  is  religion  ;  I  admit,  however,  that  the 
established  religion  of  this  country  has  been  three  or 
four  times  altered  by  act  of  Parliament,  and  there- 
fore that  a  statute  binds  even  in  that  case.  But  we 
may  very  safely  affirm,  that,  notwithstanding  this  ap- 
parent omnipotence,  it  would  be  now  found  as  impos- 
sible for  King  and  Parliament  to  alter  the  established 
religion  of  this  country  as  it  was  to  King  James 
alone,  when  he  attempted  to  make  such  an  altera- 
tion without  a  Parliament.  In  effect,  to  follow,  not 
to  force,  the  public  inclination,  —  to  give  a  direction,  a 
form,  a  technical  dress,  and  a  specific  sanction,  to  the 
general  sense  of  the  community,  is  the  true  end  of 
legislature. 

It  is  so  with  regard  to  the  exercise  of  all  the  pow- 
ers which  our  Constitution  knows  in  any  of  its  parts, 
and  indeed  to  the  substantial  existence  of  any  of  the 
parts  themselves.  The  king's  negative  to  bills  is  one 
of  the  most  indisputed  of  the  royal  prerogatives  ;  and 
it  extends  to  all  cases  whatsoever.  I  am  far  from 
certain,  that  if  several  laws,  which  I  know,  had  fallen 
under  the  stroke  of  that  sceptre,  that  the  public 
would  have  had  a  very  heavy  loss.  But  it  is  not  the 
fjropriety  of  the  exercise  which  is  in  question.  Tlie 
exercise  itself  is  wisely  forborne.     Its  repose  may  be 

VOL.  II.  15 


226  LETTER   TO   THE  SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL. 

the  preservation  of  its  existence ;  and  its  existence 
may  be  the  means  of  saving  the  Constitution  itself,  on 
an  occasion  worthy  of  bringing  it  forth. 

As  the  disputants  whose  accurate  and  logical  rea- 
sonings have  brought  us  into  our  present  condition 
think  it  absurd  that  powers  or  members  of  any  con- 
stitution should  exist,  rarely,  if  ever,  to  be  exercised, 
I  hope  I  shall  be  excused  in  mentioning  another  in- 
stance that  is  material.  We  know  that  the  Convo- 
cation of  the  Clergy  had  formerly  been  called,  and  sat 
with  nearly  as  much  regularity  to  business  as  Parlia- 
ment itself.  It  is  now  called  for  form  only.  It  sits  for 
the  purpose  of  making  some  polite  ecclesiastical  com- 
pliments to  the  king,  and,  when  that  grace  is  said,  re- 
tires and  is  heard  of  no  more.  It  is,  however,  apart  of 
the  Constitution,  and  may  be  called  out  into  act  and 
energy,  whenever  there  is  occasion,  and  whenever 
those  who  conjure  up  that  spirit  will  choose  to  abide 
the  consequences.  It  is  wise  to  permit  its  legal  exist- 
ence :  it  is  much  wiser  to  continue  it  a  legal  existence 
only.  So  truly  has  prudence  (constituted  as  the  god  of 
this  lower  world)  the  entire  dominion  over  every  ex- 
ercise of  power  committed  into  its  hands  !  And  yet  I 
have  lived  to  see  prudence  and  conformity  to  circum- 
stances wholly  set  at  nought  in  our  late  controversies, 
and  treated  as  if  they  were  the  most  contemi:)^ible  and 
irrational  of  all  things.  I  have  heard  it  an  hundred 
times  very  gravely  alleged,  that,  in  order  to  keep 
power  in  wind,  it  was  necessary,  by  preference,  to 
exert  it  in  those  very  points  in  which  it  was  most 
likely  to  be  resisted  and  the  least  likely  to  be  produc- 
tive of  any  advantage. 

These  were  the  considerations,  Gentlemen,  which 
led  me  early  to  think,  that,  in  the  comprehensive 


LETTER   TO    THE   SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL.  227 

dominion  wlucli  tlie  Divine  Providence  had  put  into 
our  hands,  instead  of  troubling-  our  understandings 
with  speculations  concerning  the  unity  of  empire 
and  the  identity  or  distinction  of  legislative  powers, 
and  inflaming  our  passions  with  the  heat  and  pride 
of  controversy,  it  was  our  duty,  in  all  soberness,  to 
conform  our  government  to  the  character  and  cii;- 
cumstanccs  of  the  several  people  who  composed  this 
mighty  and  strangely  diversified  mass.  I  never  was 
wild  enough  to  conceive  that  one  method  would  serve 
for  the  whole,  that  the  natives  of  Hindostan  and  those 
of  Virginia  could  be  ordered  in  the  same  manner, 
or  that  the  Cutchery  court  and  the  grand  jury  of 
Salem  could  be  regulated  on  a  similar  plan.  I  was 
persuaded  that  government  Avas  a  practical  thing, 
made  for  the  happiness  of  mankind,  and  not  to  furnish 
out  a  spectacle  of  uniformity  to  gratify  the  schemes 
of  visionary  politicians.  Our  business  Avas  to  rule, 
not  to  wrangle  ;  and  it  would  have  been  a  poor  com- 
pensation tliat  we  had  triumphed  in  a  dispute,  whilst 
we  lost  an  empire. 

If  there  be  one  fact  in  the  world  perfectly  clear,  it 
is  this,  —  "  that  the  disposition  of  the  people  of  Amer- 
ica is  wholly  averse  to  any  other  than  a  free  govern- 
ment" ;  and  this  is  indication  enough  to  any  honest 
statesman  how  he  ought  to  adapt  whatever  power  he 
finds  in  his  hands  to  their  case.  If  any  ask  me  what 
a  free  government  is,  I  answer,  that,  for  any  practi- 
cal purpose,  it  is  what  the  people  think  so,  — and  that 
they,  and  not  I,  are  the  natural,  laAvful,  and  compe- 
tent judges  of  this  matter.  If  they  practically  allow 
me  a  greater  degree  of  authority  over  them  than  is 
consistent  with  any  correct  ideas  of  perfect  freedom, 
I  ought  to  thank  them  for  so  great  a  trust,  and  not  to 


228  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL. 

endoavor  to  prove  from  thence  that  they  have  rea- 
soned amiss,  and  that,  havhig  gone  so  far,  hy  analogy 
they  must  hereafter  have  no  enjoyment  hut  hy  my 
pleasure. 

If  wc  had  seen  this  done  by  any  others,  we  should 
have  concluded  them  far  gone  in  madness.  It  is  mel- 
ancholy, as  well  as  ridiculous,  to  observe  the  kind  of 
reasoning  with  which  the  public  has  been  amused,  in 
order  to  divert  our  minds  from  the  common  sense  of 
our  American  policy.  There  are  people  who  have 
split  and  anatomized  the  doctrine  of  free  government, 
as  if  it  were  an  abstract  question  concerning  meta- 
physical liberty  and  necessity,  and  not  a  matter  of 
moral  prudence  and  natural  feeling.  They  have  dis- 
puted whether  liberty  be  a  positive  or  a  negative  idea ; 
whether  it  does  not  consist  in  being  governed  by  laws, 
without  considering  what  arc  the  laws,  or  who  are  the 
makers  ;  whether  man  has  any  rights  by  Nature  ;  and 
whether  all  the  property  he  enjoys  be  not  the  alms  of 
his  government,  and  his  life  itself  their  favor  and  in- 
dulgence. Others,  corrupting  religion  as  these  have 
perverted  philosophy,  contend  that  Christians  are  re- 
deemed into  captivity,  and  the  blood  of  tlic  Saviour 
of  mankind  has  been  shed  to  make  them  the  slaves 
of  a  few  proud  and  insolent  sinners.  These  shocking 
extremes  provoking  to  extremes  of  another  kind,  spec- 
ulations arc  let  loose  as  destructive  to  all  authority 
as  the  former  are  to  all  freedom ;  and  every  govern- 
ment is  called  tyranny  and  usurpation  wliicli  is  not 
formed  on  their  fancies.  In  this  manner  the  stirrors- 
up  of  this  contention,  not  satisfied  with  distracting 
our  dependencies  and  filling  them  with  blood  and 
slaughter,  are  corrupting  our  understandings :  they 
arc  endeavoring  to  tear  up.  along  with  practical  lib- 


LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL.  229 

erty,  all  the  foundations  of  human  society,  all  equity 
and  justice,  religion  and  order. 

Civil  freedom.  Gentlemen,  is  not,  as  many  havo 
endeavored  to  persuade  you,  a  thing  tliat  lies  liid  in 
the  depth  of  abstruse  science.  It  is  a  blessing  and  a 
benefit,  not  an  abstract  speculation ;  and  all  tlie  just 
reasoning  that  can  be  upon  it  is  of  so  coarse  a  tex- 
ture as  perfectly  to  suit  the  ordinary  capacities  of 
those  who  are  to  enjoy,  and  of  those  who  are  to  de- 
fend it.  Far  from  any  resemblance  to  those  proposi- 
tions in  geometry  and  metaphysics  which  admit  no 
medium,  but  must  be  true  or  false  in  all  their  lati- 
tude, social  and  civil  freedom,  like  all  other  things  in 
common  life,  are  variously  mixed  and  modified,  en- 
joyed in  very  different  degrees,  and  shaped  into  an 
infinite  diversity  of  forms,  according  to  the  temper 
and  circumstances  of  every  community.  The  extreme 
of  liberty  (which  is  its  abstract  perfection,  but  its  real 
fault)  obtains  nowhere,  nor  ought  to  obtain  anywhere  ; 
because  extremes,  as  we  all  know,  in  every  point  which 
relates  eitlier  to  our  duties  or  satisfactions  in  life,  are 
destructive  both  to  virtue  and  enjoyment.  Liberty, 
too,  must  be  limited  in  order  to  be  possessed.  The 
degree  of  restraint  it  is  impossible  in  any  case  to  set- 
tle precisely.  But  it  ought  to  be  the  constant  aim  of 
every  wise  public  counsel  to  find  out  by  cautious  ex- 
periments, and  rational,  cool  endeavors,  witli  liow  lit- 
tle, not  how  mucli,  of  this  restraint  tlie  community 
can  subsist :  for  liberty  is  a  good  to  be  improved,  and 
not  an  evil  to  be  lessened.  It  is  not  only  a  private 
blessing  of  the  first  order,  but  the  vital  spring  and 
energy  of  the  state  itself,  wliich  has  just  so  much  lifo 
and  vigor  as  there  is  lil^crty  in  it.  But  wliether  lib- 
erty be  advantageous  or  not,  (for  I  know  it  is  a  fash- 


230  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF    BRISTOL. 

ion  to  decry  the  very  principle,)  none  will  dispute 
that  peace  is  a  blessing  ;  and  peace  must,  in  the 
course  of  human  affairs,  be  frequently  bought  by 
some  indulgence  and  toleration  at  least  to  liberty : 
for,  as  the  Sabbath  (though  of  divine  institution)  was 
made  for  man,  not  man  for  the  Sabbath,  government, 
which  can  claim  no  higher  origin  or  authority,  in  its 
exercise  at  least,  ought  to  conform  to  the  exigencies 
of  the  time,  and  the  temper  and  character  of  the  peo- 
ple with  whom  it  is  concerned,  and  not  always  to  at- 
tempt violently  to  bend  the  people  to  their  theories 
of  subjection.  The  bulk  of  mankind,  on  their  part, 
are  not  excessively  curious  concerning  any  theories 
whilst  they  are  really  happy ;  and  one  sure  symptom 
of  an  ill-conducted  state  is  the  propensity  of  the  peo- 
ple to  resort  to  them. 

But  when  subjects,  by  a  long  course  of  such  ill 
conduct,  are  once  thoroughly  inflamed,  and  the  state 
itself  violently  distempered,  the  people  must  have 
some  satisfaction  to  their  feelings  more  solid  than  a 
sophistical  speculation  on  law  and  government.  Such 
was  our  situation  :  and  such  a  satisfaction  was  neces- 
sary to  prevent  recourse  to  arms ;  it  was  necessary 
towards  laying  them  down ;  it  will  be  necessary  to 
prevent  the  taking  them  up  again  and  again.  Of 
what  nature  this  satisfaction  ought  to  be  I  wish  it 
had  been  the  disposition  of  Parliament  seriously  to 
consider.  It  was  certainly  a  deliberation  that  called 
for  the  exertion  of  all  their  wisdom. 

I  am,  and  ever  have  been,  deeply  sensible  of  the 
difficulty  of  reconciling  the  strong  presiding  power, 
that  is  so  useful  towards  the  conservation  of  a  vast, 
disconnected,  infinitely  diversified  empire,  with  that 
liberty  and  safety  of  the  provinces  which  they  must 


LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF    BRISTOL.  231 

enjoy,  (in  opinion  and  practice  at  least,)  or  tliey  will 
not  be  provinces  at  all.  I  know,  and  have  long  felt, 
the  difficulty  of  reconciling  the  unwieldy  haughtiness 
of  a  great  ruling  nation,  habituated  to  command,  pam- 
pered by  enormous  wealth,  and  confident  from  a  long 
course  of  prosperity  and  victory,  to  the  high  spirit  of 
free  dependencies,  animated  with  the  first  glow  and 
activity  of  juvenile  heat,  and  assuming  to  themselves, 
as  their  birthright,  some  part  of  that  very  pride  which 
oppresses  them.  They  who  perceive  no  difficulty  in 
reconciling  these  tempers  (which,  however,  to  make 
peace,  must  some  way  or  other  be  reconciled)  are 
much  above  my  capacity,  or  much  below  the  magni- 
tude of  the  business.  Of  one  thing  I  am  perfectly 
clear :  that  it  is  not  by  deciding  the  suit,  but  by  com- 
promising the  difference,  that  peace  can  be  restored 
or  kept.  They  who  would  put  an  end  to  such  quar- 
rels by  declaring  roundly  in  favor  of  the  whole  de- 
mands of  either  party  have  mistaken,  in  my  humble 
opinion,  the  office  of  a  mediator. 

The  war  is  now  of  full  two  years'  standing:  the 
controversy  of  many  more.  In  different  periods  of 
the  dispute,  different  methods  of  reconciliation  were 
to  be  pursued.  I  mean  to  trouble  you  with  a  short 
state  of  things  at  the  most  important  of  these  periods, 
in  order  to  give  you  a  more  distinct  idea  of  our  pol- 
icy witli  regard  to  this  most  delicate  of  all  objects. 
The  colonies  were  from  the  beginning  subject  to  the 
legislature  of  Great  Britahi  on  principles  which  they 
never  examined ;  and  we  permitted  to  them  many 
local  privileges,  without  asking  how  they  agreed  with 
that  legislative  authority.  Modes  of  administration 
were  formed  in  an  insensible  and  very  unsystematic 
manner.     But  they  gradually  adapted  themselves  to 


232  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF    BRISTOL. 

the  varying  condition  of  things.  What  was  first  a  sin- 
gle kingdom  stretched  into  an  empire ;  and  an  impe- 
rial supcrintendency,  of  some  kind  or  other,  became 
necessary.  Parliament,  from  a  mere  representative  of 
the  people,  and  a  guardian  of  popular  privileges  for  its 
own  immediate  constituents,  grew  into  a  mighty  sov- 
ereign. Instead  of  being  a  control  on  the  crown  on 
its  own  behalf,' it  communicated  a  sort  of  strength  to 
the  royal  authority,  which  was  wanted  for  the  conser- 
vation of  a  new  object,  but  which  could  not  be  safely 
trusted  to  the  crown  alone.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
colonics,  advancing  by  equal  steps,  and  governed  by 
the  same  necessity,  had  formed  within  themselves, 
either  by  royal  instruction  or  royal  charter,  assem- 
blies so  exceedingly  resembling  a  parliament,  in  all 
their  forms,  functions,  and  powers,  that  it  was  impos- 
sible they  should  not  imbibe  some  opinion  of  a  simi- 
lar authority. 

At  the  first  designation  of  these  assemblies,  they 
were  probably  not  intended  for  anything  more  (nor 
perhaps  did  they  think  themselves  much  higher) 
than  the  municipal  corporations  within  this  island,  to 
wbich  some  at  present  love  to  compare  them.  But 
nothing  in  progression  can  rest  on  its  original  plan. 
We  may  as  well  think  of  rocking  a  grown  man  in  the 
cradle  of  an  infant.  Tlierefore,  as  the  colonies  pros- 
pered and  increased  to  a  numerous  and  mighty  peo- 
ple, spreading  over  a  very  great  tract  of  the  globe, 
it  was  natural  that  they  should  attribute*  to  assem- 
blies so  respectable  in  their  formal  constitution  some 
part  of  the  dignity  of  the  great  nations  which  they 
represented.  No  longer  tied  to  by-laws,  these  assem- 
blies made  acts  of  all  sorts  and  in  all  cases  whatso- 
ever.   They  levied  money,  not  for  parochial  purposes, 


LETTER   TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  233 

but  upon  regular  grants  to  the  crown,  following  all 
the  rules  and  principles  of  a  parliament,  to  which 
they '  approached  every  day  more  and  more  nearly. 
Those  who  think  themselves  wiser  than  Providence 
and  stronger  than  the  course  of  Nature  may  com- 
plain of  all  this  variation,  on  the  one  side  or  the 
otlicr,  as  their  several  humors  and  prejudices  may 
lead  them.  But  things  could  not  be  otherwise  ;  and 
English  colonies  must  be  had  on  these  terms,  or  not 
had  at  all.  In  the  mean  time  neither  party  felt  any 
inconvenience  from  this  double  legislature,  to  which 
they  had  been  formed  by  imperceptible  habits,  and 
bid  custom,  the  great  support  of  all  the  governments 
m  the  world.  Though  these  two  legislatures  were 
sometimes  found  perhaps  performing  the  very  same 
functions,  they  did  not  very  grossly  or  systematically 
clash.  In  all  likelihood  this  arose  from  mere  n3glect, 
possibly  from  the  natural  operation  of  things,  which, 
left  to  themselves,  generally  ftiU  into  tlicir  proper 
order.  But  whatever  was  the  cause,  it  is  certain 
that  a  regular  revenue,  by  the  authority  of  Parlia- 
ment, for  the  support  of  civil  and  military  establish- 
ments, seems  not  to  have  been  thought  of  until  the 
colonies  were  too  proud  to  submit,  too  strong  to  be 
forced,  too  enlightened  not  to  see  all  tlic  conse- 
quences which  must  arise  from  such  a  system. 

If  ever  this  scheme  of  taxation  was  to  bo  pushed 
against  the  inclinations  of  the  people,  it  was  evident 
that  discussions  must  arise,  which  would  let  loose  all 
the  elements  that  composed  this  double  constitution, 
would  show  how  much  each  of  their  members  had 
departed  from  its  original  principles,  and  would  dis- 
cover contradictions  in  each  legislature,  as  well  to  its 
own  hrst  principles  as  to  its  relation  to  the  other, 


23-i  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL. 

very  difficult,  if  not  absolutely  impossible,  to  be  rec- 
onciled. 

Therefore,  at  the  first  fatal  opening  of  this  contest, 
the  wisest  course  seemed  to  be  to  put  an  end  as  soon 
as  possible  to  the  immediate  causes  of  the  dispute, 
and  to  quiet  a  discussion,  not  easily  settled  upon 
clear  principles,  and  arising  from  claims  which  pride 
would  permit  neither  party  to  abandon,  by  resorting 
as  nearly  as  possible  to  the  old,  successful  course.  A 
mere  repeal  of  the  obnoxious  tax,  with  a  declaration 
of  the  legislative  authority  of  this  kingdom,  was  then 
fully  sufficient  to  procure  peace  to  both  sides.  Man 
is  a  creature  of  habit,  and,  the  first  breach  being  of 
very  short  continuance,  the  colonies  fell  back  exactly 
into  their  ancient  state.  The  Congress  has  used  an 
expression  with  regard  to  tliis  pacification  which 
appears  to  me  truly  significant.  After  the  repeal  of 
the  Stamp  Act,  "  the  colonies  fell,"  says  this  assem- 
bly, "  into  their  ancient  state  of  unsuspecting  confi- 
dence in  the  mother  country.''''  This  unsuspecting  con- 
fidence is  the  true  centre  of  gravity  amongst  man- 
kind, about  which  all  the  parts  are  at  rest.  It  is  this 
unsuspecting  confidence  that  removes  all  difficulties, 
and  reconciles  all  the  contradictions  which  occur  in 
the  complexity  of  all  ancient  puzzled  political  estab- 
lishments. Happy  are  the  rulers  which  have  the 
secret  of  preserving  it ! 

The  whole  empire  has  reason  to  remember  with 
eternal  gratitude  the  wisdom  and  temper  of  tliat 
man  and  his  excellent  associates,  who,  to  recover  this 
confidence,  formed  a  plan  of  pacification  in  1766. 
That  plan,  being  built  upon  the  nature  of  man,  and 
the  circumstances  and  habits  of  the  two  countries,  and 
not  on  any  visionary  speculations,  perfectly  answered 


LETTER  TO    THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  235 

its  end,  as  long  as  it  was  tliouglit  proper  to  adhere  to 
it.  Witliout  giving  a  rude  shock  to  the  dignity  (well 
or  ill  understood)  of  this  Parliament,  they  gave  per- 
fect content  to  our  dependencies.  Had  it  not  been 
for  the  mediatorial  spirit  and  talents  of  that  great 
man  between  such  clashing  pretensions  and  passions, 
we  should  then  have  rushed  headlong  (I  know  what 
I  say)  into  the  calamities  of  that  civil  war  in  which, 
by  departing  from  his  system,  we  are  at  length  in- 
volved ;  and  we  should  have  been  precipitated  into 
that  war  at  a  time  when  circumstances  both  at  home 
and  abroad  were  far,  very  far,  more  unfavorable  unto 
us  than  they  were  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  present 
troubles. 

I  had  the  happiness  of  giving  my  first  votes  in 
Parliament  for  that  pacification.  I  was  one  of  those 
almost  unanimous  members  who,  in  the  necessary 
concessions  of  Parliament,  would  as  much  as  possible 
have  preserved  its  authority  and  respected  its  honor. 
I  could  not  at  once  tear  from  my  heart  prejudices 
which  were  dear  to  me,  and  which  bore  a  resem- 
blance to  virtue.  I  had  then,  and  I  have  still,  my 
partialities.  What  Parliament  gave  up  I  wished  to 
be  given  as  of  grace  and  favor  and  affection,  and  not 
as  a  restitution  of  stolen  goods.  High  dignity  re- 
lented as  it  was  soothed ;  and  a  benignity  from  old 
acknowledged  greatness  had  its  full  effect  on  our 
dependencies.  Our  unlimited  declaration  of  legisla- 
tive autliority  produced  not  a  single  murmur.  If 
this  undefined  power  has  become  odious  since  that 
time,  and  full  of  horror  to  the  colonies,  it  is  because 
the  unauspiclous  confidence  is  lost,  and  the  pai'ental 
affection,  in  the  bosom  of  whose  boundless  authority 
they  reposed  their  privileges,  is  become  estranged 
and  hostile. 


236  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL. 

It  will  bo  asked,  if  sucli  was  then  my  opinion  of 
the  mode  of  pacification,  how  I  came  to  be  the  very 
person  who  moved,  not  only  for  a  repeal  of  all  the 
late  coercive  statutes,  but  for  mutilating,  by  a  posi- 
tive law,  the  entircness  of  the  legislative  power  of 
Parliament,  and  cutting  off  from  it  the  wliole  right 
of  taxation.     I  answer,  Because  a  different  state  of 
things  requires  a  different  conduct.     When  the  dis- 
pute had  gone  to  these  last  extremities,  (which  no 
man  labored  more  to  prevent  than  I  did,)  tlic  conces- 
sions which  had  satisfied  in  the  beginning  could  sat- 
isfy no  longer ;   because  the  violation  of  tacit  faith 
required  explicit  security.     The  same  cause  which 
has  introduced   all  formal  compacts  and  covenants 
among  men  made  it  necessary  :    I  mean  habits  of 
soreness,  jealousy,  and  distrust.     I  parted  with  it  as 
with  a  limb,  but  as  a  limb  to  save  the  body :  and  I 
would  have  parted  with  more,  if  more  had  been  ne- 
cessary ;  anything  rather  than  a  fruitless,  hopeless, 
unnatural  civil  war.     This  mode  of  yielding  would, 
it  is  said,  give  way  to  independency  without  a  war. 
I  am  persuaded,  from  the  nature  of  things,  and  from 
every  information,  that  it  would  have  had  a  directly 
contrary  effect.     But  if  it  had  this  effect,  I  confess 
that   I  should  prefer  independency  without  war  to 
independency  with  it;   and   I   have  so   much   trust 
in  the  inclinations  and  prejudices  of  mankind,  and 
so  little  in  anything  else,  that   I  should  expect  ten 
times  more  benefit  to  this  kingdom  from  the  affection 
of  America,  though  under  a  separate  establishment, 
than  from  her  perfect  submission  to  the  crown  and 
Parliament,  accompanied   with   her   terror,  disgust, 
and  abhorrence.     Bodies  tied  together  by  so  unnat- 
ural a   bond   of  union  as  mutual  hatred  are  only 
connected  to  their  ruin. 


LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL.  237 

One  luindred  and  ten  respectable  mcmbci'S  of  Par- 
liament voted  for  that  concession.  Many  not  present 
when  the  motion  was  made  were  of  the  sentiments  of 
those  who  voted.  I  knew  it  would  then  have  made 
peace.  1  am  not  without  hopes  that  it  would  do  so  at 
present,  if  it  were  adopted.  No  benefit,  no  revenue, 
could  be  lost  by  it;  something  might  possibly  be 
gained  by  its  consequences.  For  be  fully  assured, 
that,  of  all  the  phantoms  that  ever  deluded  the  fond 
hopes  of  a  credulous  world,  a  Parliamentary  revenue 
in  the  colonies  is  the  most  perfectly  chimerical.  Your 
breaking  them  to  any  subjection,  far  from  relieving 
your  burdens,  (the  pretext  for  this  war,)  will  never 
pay  that  military  force  which  will  be  kept  up  to  the 
destruction  of  their  liberties  and  yours.  I  risk  noth- 
ing in  this  prophecy. 

Gentlemen,  you  have  my  opinions  on  the  present 
state  of  public  affairs.  Mean  as  they  may  be  in  them- 
selves, your  partiality  has  made  them  of  some  impor- 
tance. "Without  troubling  myself  to  inquire  whether 
I  am  under  a  formal  obligation  to  it,  I  have  a  pleas- 
ure in  accounting  for  my  conduct  to  my  constituents. 
I  feel  warmly  on  this  subject,  and  I  express  myself  as 
I  feel.  If  I  presume  to  blame  any  public  proceeding, 
I  cannot  bo  supposed  to  be  personal.  Would  to  God 
I  could  be  suspected  of  it !  My  fault  might  be  great- 
er, but  the  public  calamity  would  be  less  extensive. 
If  my  conduct  has  not  been  able  to  make  any  impres- 
sion on  tlie  warm  part  of  that  ancient  and  powerful 
party  with  whose  support  I  was  not  honored  at  my 
election,  on  my  side,  my  respect,  regard,  and  duty  to 
them  is  not  at  all  lessened.  I  owe  the  gentlemen  who 
compose  it  my  most   humble  service  in  everything. 


t 

238  LETTER   TO    THE    SHERIFFS    OP   BRISTOL. 

I  hope  that  whenever  any  of  them  were  pleased  to 
command  me,  that  they  found  me  perfectly  equal  in 
my  obedience.  But  flattery  and  friendship  are  very 
different  things  ;  and  to  mislead  is  not  to  serve  them. 
I  cannot  purchase  the  favor  of  any  man  by  concealing 
from  him  what  I  think  his  ruin. 

By  the  favor  of  my  fellow-citizens,  I  am  the  repre- 
sentative of  an  honest,  well-ordered,  virtuous  city,  — 
of  a  people  who  preserve  more  of  the  original  English 
simplicity  and  purity  of  manners  than  perhaps  any 
other.  You  possess  among  you  several  men  and  , 
magistrates  of  large  and  cultivated  understandings, 
fit  for  any  employment  in  any  sphere.  I  do,  to  the 
best  of  my  power,  act  so  as  to  make  myself  worthy  of 
so  honorable  a  choice.  If  I  were  ready,  on  any  call 
of  my  own  vanity  or  interest,  or  to  answer  any  elec- 
tion purpose,  to  forsake  principles  (whatever  they 
are)  which  I  had  formed  at  a  mature  age,  on  fnll  re- 
flection, and  which  had  been  confirmed  by  long  expe- 
rience, I  should  forfeit  the  only  thing  which  makes 
you  pardon  so  many  errors  and  imperfections  in  me. 

Not  that  I  think  it  fit  for  any  one  to  rely  too  much 
on  his  own  understanding,  or  to  be  filled  with  a  pre- 
sumption not  becoming  a  Christian  man  in  his  own 
personal  stability  and  rectitude.  I  liope  I  am  far 
from  that  vain  confidence  which  almost  always  fails 
in  trial.  I  know  my  weakness  in  all  respects,  as 
much  at  least  as  any  enemy  I  have ;  and  I  attempt 
to  take  security  agahist  it.  The  only  method  wliich 
has  ever  been  found  effectual  to  preserve  any  man 
against  the  corrupticn  of  nature  and  example  is  an 
habit  of  life  and  communication  of  councils  with  the 
most  virtuous  and  public-spirited  men  of  the  age  you 
live  in.     Such  a  society  cannot  be  kept  without  ad- 


LETTER   TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OP  BRISTOL.  239 

vantage,  or  deserted  without  sliame.  For  this  rule 
of  conduct  I  may  be  called  in  reproach  a  party 
man  ;  but  I  am  little  affected  with  such  aspersions. 
In  the  way  which  they  call  party  I  worship  the  Con- 
stitution of  your  fathers  ;  and  I  shall  never  blush 
for  my  political  company.  All  reverence  to  honor, 
all  idea  of  what  it  is,  will  be  lost  out  of  the  world, 
before  it  can  be  imputed  as  a  fault  to  any  man,  that 
he  has  been  closely  connected  with  those  incompa- 
rable persons,  living  and  dead,  with  whom  for  elev- 
en years  I  have  constantly  thought  and  acted.  If  I 
have  wandered  out  of  the  paths  of  rectitude  into  those 
of  interested  faction,  it  was  in  company  with  the  Sa- 
viles,  the  Dowdeswells,  the  Wentworths,  the  Bentincks ; 
with  the  Lenoxes,  the  Manchesters,  the  Keppcls,  the 
Saunderses ;  with  the  temperate,  permanent,  heredi- 
tary virtue  of  the  whole  house  of  Cavendish :  names, 
among  which,  some  have  extended  your  fame  and 
empire  in  arms,  and  all  have  fought  the  battle  of  your 
liberties  in  fields  not  less  glorious.  These,  and  many 
more  like  these,  grafting  public  principles  on  private 
honor,  have  redeemed  the  present  age,  and  would 
have  adorned  the  most  splendid  period  in  your  his- 
tory. Where  could  any  man,  conscious  of  his  own 
inability  to  act  alone,  and  willing  to  act  as  he  ought 
to  do,  have  arranged  himself  better?  If  any  one 
thinks  this  kind  of  society  to  be  taken  up  as  the  best 
method  of  gratifying  low  personal  pride  or  ambitious 
interest,  he  is  mistaken,  and  knows  nothing  of  tho 
world. 

Preferring  this  connection,  I  do  not  mean  to  detract 
in  the  slightest  degree  from  others.  There  are  some 
of  those  whom  I  admire  at  something  of  a  greater 
distance,  with  whom  I  have  had  the  happhiess  also 


240  LETTER   TO    THE   SHEEIFFS    OF   BRISTOL. 

perfectly  to  agree,  in  almost  all  the  particulars  in 
wliicli  1  have  differed  with  some  successive  adminis- 
trations ;  and  they  are  such  as  it  never  can  be  reputa- 
ble to  any  government  to  reckon  among  its  enemies. 

I  hope  there  are  none  of  you  corrupted  with  the 
doctrine  taught  by  wicked  men  for  the  worst  pur- 
poses, and  received  by  the  malignant  credulity  of  envy 
and  ignorance,  which  is,  that  the  men  who  act  upon 
the  public  stage  are  all  alike,  all  equally  corrupt,  all 
influenced  by  no  other  views  than  tlie  sordid  luro  of 
salary  and  pension.  The  thing  I  know  by  experience 
to  be  false.  Never  expecting  to  find  perfection  in 
men,  and  not  looking  for  divine  attributes  in  created 
beings,  in  my  commerce  with  my  contemporaries  I 
have  found  much  human  virtue.  I  have  seen  not  a 
little  public  spirit,  a  real  subordination  of  interest  to 
duty,  and  a  decent  and  regulated  sensibility  to  hon- 
est fame  and  reputation.  The  age  unquestionably 
produces  (whether  in  a  greater  or  less  number  than 
former  times  I  know  not)  daring  profligates  and  in- 
sidious hypocrites.  What  then  ?  Am  I  not  to  avail 
myself  of  whatever  good  is  to  be  found  in  the  world, 
because  of  the  mixture  of  evil  that  will  always  be  in 
it  ?  The  smallness  of  the  quantity  in  currency  only 
heightens  the  value.  They  who  raise  suspicions  on 
the  good  on  account  of  the  behavior  of  ill  men  are 
of  the  party  of  the  latter.  The  common  cant  is  no 
justification  for  taking  this  party.  I  have  been  de- 
ceived, say  they,  by  Titius  and  Mcevius ;  I  have  been 
the  dupe  of  this  pretender  or  of  that  mountebank ; 
and  I  can  trust  appearances  no  longer.  But  my  cre- 
dulity and  want  of  discernment  cannot,  as  I  conceive, 
amount  to  a  fair  presumption  against  any  man's  in- 
tegiity.     A  conscientious  person  would  rather  doubt 


LETTER  TO   THE  SHERIFFS   OP  BRISTOL.  241 

his  own  judgment  than  condemn  his  species.  He 
would  say,  "  I  have  observed  without  attention,  or 
judged  upon  erroneous  maxims;  I  trusted  to  pro- 
fession, when  I  ought  to  have  attended  to  conduct." 
Such  a  man  will  grow  wise,  not  malignant,  by  his  ac- 
quaintance with  the  world.  But  he  that  accuses  all 
mankind  of  corruption  ought  to  remember  that  he  is 
sure  to  convict  only  one.  In  truth,  I  should  much 
rather  admit  those  whom  at  any  time  I  have  disrel- 
ished the  most  to  be  patterns  of  perfection  than  seek 
a  consolation  to  my  own  unworthiness  in  a  general 
communion  of  depravity  with  all  about  me. 

That  this  ill-natured  doctrine  should  be  preached 
by  the  missionaries  of  a  court  I  do  not  wonder.  It 
answers  their  purpose.  But  that  it  should  be  heard 
among  those  who  pretend  to  be  strong  assertors  of 
liberty  is  not  only  surprising,  but  hardly  natural. 
This  moral  levelling  is  a  servile  principle.  It  leads  to 
practical  passive  obedience  far  better  than  all  the  doc- 
trines which  the  pliant  accommodation  of  theology  to 
power  has  ever  produced.  It  cuts  up  by  the  roots, 
not  only  all  idea  of  forcible  resistance,  but  even  of 
civil  opposition.  It  disposes  men  to  an  abject  sub- 
mission, not  by  opinion,  which  may  be  shaken  by 
argument  or  altered  by  passion,  but  by  the  strong  ties 
of  public  and  private  interest.  For,  if  all  men  who  act 
in  a  public  situation  are  equally  selfish,  corrupt,  and 
venal,  what  reason  can  be  given  for  desiring  any  sort 
of  change,  which,  besides  the  evils  which  must  attend 
all  changes,  can  be  productive  of  no  possible  advan- 
tage ?  The  active  men  in  the  state  are  true  samples 
of  the  mass.  If  they  are  universally  depraved,  the 
commonwealth  itself  is  not  sound.  We  may  amuse 
ourselves  with  talking  as  much  as  we  please  of  the 

VOL.  II.  16 


242  LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL. 

virtue  of  middle  or  humble  life ;  that  is,  we  may 
place  our  confidence  in  the  virtue  of  those  who  have 
never  been  tried.  But  if  tlie  persons  who  are  contin- 
ually emerging  out  of  that  sphere  be  no  better  than 
those  whom  birth  has  placed  above  it,  what  hopes  are 
there  in  the  remainder  of  the  body  which  is  to  fur- 
nish the  perpetual  succession  of  the  state  ?  All  who 
have  ever  written  on  government  are  unanimous, 
that  among  a  people  generally  corrupt  liberty  cannot 
long  exist.  And,  indeed,  how  is  it  possible,  when 
those  who  are  to  make  the  laws,  to  guard,  to  enforce, 
or  to  obey  them,  are,  by  a  tacit  confederacy  of  man- 
ners, indisposed  to  the  spirit  of  all  generous  and  noble 
institutions  ? 

I  am  aware  that  the  age  is  not  what  we  all  wish. 
But  I  am  sure  that  the  only  means  of  checking  its 
precipitate  degeneracy  is  heartily  to  concur  with 
whatever  is  the  best  in  our  time,  and  to  have  some 
more  correct  standard  of  judging  what  that  best  is 
than  the  transient  and  uncertain  favor  of  a  court.  If 
once  we  are  able  to  find,  and  can  prevail  on  ourselves 
to  strengthen  an  union  of  such  men,  whatever  acciden- 
tally becomes  indisposed  to  ill-exercised  power,  even 
by  the  ordinary  operation  of  human  passions,  must 
join  with  that  society,  and  cannot  long  be  joined 
without  in  some  degree  assimilating  to  it.  Virtue 
will  catch  as  well  as  vice  by  contact ;  and  the  public 
stock  of  honest,  manly  principle  will  daily  accumu- 
late. We  are  not  too  nicely  to  scrutinize  motives  as 
long  as  action  is  irreproachable.  It  is  enough  (and 
for  a  worthy  man  perhaps  too  much)  to  deal  out  its 
infamy  to  convicted  guilt  and  declared  apostasy. 

Tliis,  Gentlemen,  has  been  from  the  beginning  the 
rule  of  my  conduct ;  and  I  mean  to  continue  it,  as 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OP   BRISTOL.  243 

long  as  sucli  a  body  as  I  have  described  can  by  any 
possibility  be  kept  together  ;  for  I  should  think  it  the 
most  dreadful  of  all  offences,  not  only  to-^ards  the 
present  generation,  but  to  all  the  future,  if  I  were  to 
do  anything  which  could  make  the  minutest  breach  in 
this  great  conservatory  of  free  principles.  Those  who 
perhaps  have  the  same  intentions,  but  are  separated 
by  some  little  political  animosities,  will,  I  hope,  dis- 
cern at  last  how  little  conducive  it  is  to  any  rational 
purpose  to  lower  its  reputation.  For  my  part,  Gentle- 
men, from  much  experience,  from  no  little  thinking, 
and  from  comparing  a  great  variety  of  things,  1  am 
thoroughly  persuaded  that  the  last  hopes  of  preserv- 
ing the  spirit  of  the  English  Constitution,  or  of  reunit- 
ing the  dissipated  members  of  the  English  race  upon 
a  common  plan  of  tranquillity  and  liberty,  does  en- 
tirely depend  on  their  firm  and  lasting  union,  and 
above  all  on  their  keeping  themselves  from  that  de- 
spair which  is  so  very  apt  to  fall  on  those  whom 
a  violence  of  character  and  a  mixture  of  ambitious 
views  do  not  support  through  a  long,  painful,  and 
unsuccessful  struggle. 

There  never.  Gentlemen,  was  a  period  in  which  the 
steadfastness  of  some  men  has  been  put  to  so  sore  a 
trial.  It  is  not  very  difficult  for  well-formed  minds 
to  abandon  their  interest;  but  the  separation  of  fame 
and  virtue  is  an  harsh  divorce.  Liberty  is  in  danger 
of  being  made  unpopular  to  Englishmen.  Contend- 
ing for  an  imaginary  power,  we  begin  to  acquire  the 
spirit  of  domination,  and  to  lose  the  relish  of  honest 
equality.  The  principles  of  our  forefathers  become 
suspected  to  us,  because  we  see  them  animating  the 
present  opposition  of  our  children.  The  faults  which 
grow  out  of  the  luxuriance  of  freedom  apjDcar  much 


244  LETTER   TO    THE   SHERIFFS    OF   BRISTOL. 

more  shocking  to  us  than  the  base  vices  which  are  gen- 
erated from  the  rankness  of  servitude.  Accordingly, 
the  least  resistance  to  power  appears  more  inexcusa- 
ble in  our  eyes  than  the  greatest  abuses  of  authority. 
All  dread  of  a  standing  military  force  is  looked  upon 
as  a  superstitious  panic.  All  shame  of  calling  in  for- 
eigners and  savages  in  a  civil  contest  is  worn  off.  We 
grow  indifferent  to  the  consequences  inevitable  to  our- 
selves from  the  plan  of  ruling  half  the  empire  by  a 
mercenary  sword.  We  are  taught  to  believe  that  a 
desire  of  domineering  over  our  countrymen  is  love  to 
our  country,  that  those  who  hate  civil  war  abet  rebel- 
lion, and  that  the  amiable  and  conciliatory  virtues  of 
lenity,  moderation,  and  tenderness  to  the  privileges 
of  those  who  depend  on  this  kingdom  are  a  sort  of 
treason  to  the  state. 

It  is  impossible  that  we  should  remain  long  in  a 
situation  which  breeds  such  notions  and  dispositions 
without  some  great  alteration  in  the  national  charac- 
ter. Those  ingenuous  and  feeling  minds  who  are  so 
fortified  against  all  other  things,  and  so  unarmed  to 
whatever  approaches  in  the  shape  of  disgrace,  finding 
these  principles,  which  they  considered  as  sure  means 
of  honor,  to  be  grown  into  disrepute,  will  retire  dis- 
heartened and  disgusted.  Those  of  a  more  robust 
make.,  the  bold,  able,  ambitious  men,  who  pay  some 
of  their  court  to  power  through  the  people,  and  sub- 
stitute the  voice  of  transient  opinion  in  the  place  of 
true  glory,  will  give  into  the  general  mode ;  and  those 
superior  understandings  which  ought  to  correct  vul- 
gar prejudice  will  confirm  and  aggravate  its  errors. 
Many  things  have  been  long  operating  towards  a 
gradual  change  in  our  principles ;  but  this  Amer- 
ican war  has  done  more  in  a  very  few  years  than  all 


LETTER  TO   THE   SHERIFFS   OF   BRISTOL.  245 

the  other  causes  could  have  effected  in  a  century.  It 
is  therefore  not  on  its  own  separate  account,  but  be- 
cause of  its  attendant  circumstances,  that  I  consider 
its  continuance,  or  its  ending  in  any  way  but  that  of 
an  honorable  and  liberal  accommodation,  as  the  great- 
est e\als  which  can  befall  us.  For  that  reason  I  have 
troubled  you  with  this  long  letter.  For  that  reason 
I  entreat  you,  again  and  again,  neither  to  be  persuaded, 
shamed,  or  frighted  out  of  the  principles  that  have 
hitherto  led  so  many  of  you  to  abhor  the  war,  its 
cause,  and  its  consequences.  Let  us  not  be  amongst 
the  first  who  renounce  the  maxims  of  our  forefathers. 
I  have  the  honor  to  be. 

Gentlemen, 
Your  most  obedient  and  faithful  humble  servant, 

Edmund  Burke. 

Beaconsfield,  Aprils,  1777. 

P.  S.     You  may  communicate  this  letter  in  any 
manner  you  think  proper  to  my  constituents. 


TWO    LETTEllS 


TO 


GENTLEMEN  IN  THE  CITY  OF  BRISTOL, 

ON   THE 

BILLS    DEPENDING    IN    PARLIAMENT    RELATIVE    TO 
THE   TRADE    OF   IRELAND. 

1778. 


LETTERS. 


TO  SAMUEL  SPAN,  Esq.,  MASTER  OF  THE  SOCIETY  OF  MER- 
CHANTS  ADVENTURERS   OF  BRISTOL. 

SIR,  —  I  am  lionored  with  your  letter  of  the  13th, 
in  answer  to  mine,  which  accompanied  the  reso- 
lutions of  the  House  relative  to  the  trade  of  Ireland. 

You  will  be  so  good  as  to  present  my  best  respects 
to  the  Society,  and  to  assure  them  that  it  was  alto- 
gether unnecessary  to  remind  me  of  the  interest  of 
the  constituents.  I  have  never  regarded  anything 
else  since  I  had  a  seat  in  Parliament.  Having  fre- 
quently and  maturely  considered  that  interest,  and 
stated  it  to  myself  in  almost  every  point  of  view,  I 
am  persuaded,  that,  under  the  present  circumstances, 
I  cannot  more  eifectually  pursue  it  than  by  giving 
all  the  support  in  my  power  to  the  propositions  which 
I  lately  transmitted  to  the  Hall. 

Tlie  faidt  I  find  in  the  scheme  is,  that  it  falls 
extremely  stiort  of  tliat  liberality  in  the  commercial 
system  which  I  trust  will  one  day  be  adopted.  If 
I  had  not  considered  the  present  resolutions  merely 
as  preparatory  to  better  things,  and  as  a  means  of 
showing,  experimentally,  that  justice  to  others  is  not 
always  folly  to  ourselves,  I  should  have  contented  my- 
self Avith  receiving  them  in  a  cold  and  silent  acquies- 
cence. Separately  considered,  they  are  matters  of 
no  very  great  importance.  But  they  aim,  howeve* 
imperfectly,  at  a  right  principle.     I  submit  to  the  re- 


250        TWO    LETTERS    TO    GENTLEMEN   IN    BRISTOL. 

straint  to  appease  prejudice  ;  I  accept  the  enlarge- 
ment, so  far  as  it  goes,  as  the  result  of  reason  and 
of  sound  policy. 

We  cannot  be  insensible  of  the  calamities  which 
have  been  brought  upon  this  nation  by  an  obstinate 
adherence  to  narrow  and  restrictive  plans  of  govern- 
ment. I  confess,  I  cannot  prevail  on  myself  to  take 
them  up  precisely  at  a  time  when  the  most  decisive 
experience  has  taught  the  rest  of  the  world  to  lay 
them  down.  The  propositions  in  question  did  not 
originate  from  mo,  or  from  my  particular  friends. 
But  when  things  are  so  right  in  themselves,  I  hold  it 
my  duty  not  to  inquire  from  what  hands  they  come. 
I  opposed  the  American  measures  upon  the  very  same 
principle  on  which  I  support  those  that  relate  to  Ire- 
land. I  was  convinced  that  the  evils  which  have 
arisen  from  the  adoption  of  the  former  would  be  infi- 
nitely aggravated  by  the  rejection  of  the  latter. 

Perhaps  gentlemen  arc  not  yet  fully  aware  of  the 
situation  of  their  country,  and  what  its  exigencies 
absolutely  require.  I  find  that  we  are  still  disposed 
to  talk  at  our  ease,  and  as  if  all  things  were  to  be 
regulated  by  our  good  pleasure.  I  should  consider 
it  as  a  fatal  symptom,  if,  in  our  present  distressed 
and  adverse  circumstances,  we  should  persist  in  the 
errors  which  are  natural  only  to  prosperity.  One 
cannot,  indeed,  sufficiently  lament  the  continuance 
of  that  spirit  of  delusion,  by  which,  for  a  long  time 
past,  wo  have  thought  fit  to  measure  our  necessities  by 
our  inclinations.  Moderation,  prudence,  and  equity 
are  far  more  suitable  to  our  condition  than  loftiness, 
and  confidence,  and  rigor.  We  are  threatened  by 
enemies  of  no  small  magnitude,  whom,  if  we  tliink  fit, 
we  may  despise,  as  we  have  despised  others  ;  but  they 


TWO    LETTERS   TO    GENTLEMEN   IN    BRISTOL.        251 

arc  enemies  who  can  only  cease  to  be  truly  formida- 
ble by  our  entertaining  a  due  respect  for  their  power. 
Our  danger  will  not  be  lessened  by  our  shutting  our 
eyes  to  it ;  nor  will  our  force  abroad  be  increased  by 
rendering  ourselves  feeble  and  divided  at  home. 

There  is  a  dreadful  schism  in  the  British  nation. 
Since  we  are  not  able  to  reunite  the  empire,  it  is  our 
business  to  give  all  possible  vigor  and  soundness  to 
those  parts  of  it  which  are  still  content  to  be  governed 
by  our  councils.  Sir,  it  is  proper  to  inform  you  that 
our  measures  must  he  healing.  Such  a  degree  of 
strength  must  be  communicated  to  all  the  members 
of  the  state  as  may  enable  them  to  defend  them- 
selves, and  to  cooperate  in  the  defence  of  the  whole. 
Their  temper,  too,  must  be  managed,  and  their  good 
affections  cultivated.  They  may  then  be  disposed  to 
bear  the  load  with  cheerfulness,  as  a  contribution 
towards  what  may  be  called  with  truth  and  propri- 
ety, and  not  by  an  empty  form  of  words,  a  common 
cause.  Too  little  dependence  cannot  be  had,  at  this . 
time  of  day,  on  names  and  prejudices.  The  eyes  of 
mankind  arc  opened,  and  communities  must  be  held 
together  by  an  evident  and  solid  interest.  God  for- 
bid that  our  conduct  should  demonstrate  to  the 
woi'ld  that  Great  Britain  can  in  no  instance  what- 
soever be  brought  to  a  sense  of  rational  and  equita- 
ble policy  but  by  coercion  and  force  of  arms  ! 

I  wish  you  to  recollect  with  what  powers  of  conces 
sion,  relatively  to  commerce,  as  well  as  to  legislation, 
his  Majesty's  commissioners  to  the  United  Colonies 
have  sailed  from  England  within  this  week.  Whether 
these  powers  are  sufficient  for  their  purposes  it  is  not 
now  my  business  to  examine.  But  we  all  know  that 
our  resolutions  in  favor  of  Ireland  are  trifling  and 


252        TWO    LETTERS   TO    GENTLEMEN    IN    BRISTOL. 

insignificant,  when  compared  with  the  concessions  to 
the  Americans.  At  such  a  juncture,  I  would  implore 
every  man,  who  retains  the  least  spark  of  regard  to 
the  yet  remaining  honor  and  security  of  this  country, 
not  to  compel  others  to  an  imitation  of  their  conduct, 
or  by  passion  and  violence  to  force  them  to  seek  in 
the  territories  of  the  separation  that  freedoin  and 
those  advantages  which  they  are  not  to  look  for 
whilst  they  remain  under  the  wings  of  their  ancient 
government. 

After  all,  what  are  the  matters  we  dispute  with  so 
much  warmth  ?  Do  we  in  these  resolutions  bestow 
anything  upon  Ireland  ?  Not  a  shilling.  "We  only 
consent  to  leave  to  them,  in  two  or  three  instances, 
the  use  of  the  natural  faculties  which  God  has  given 
to  them,  and  to  all  mankind.  Is  Ireland  united  to 
the  crown  of  Great  Britain  for  no  other  purpose 
than  that  we  should  counteract  the  bounty  of  Provi- 
dence in  her  favor  ?  and  in  proportion  as  that  boun- 
ty has  been  liberal,  that  we  are  to  regard  it  as  an  evil, 
which  is  to  be  met  with  in  every  sort  of  corrective  ? 
To  say  that  Ireland  interferes  with  us,  and  therefore 
must  be  checked,  is,  in  my  opinion,  a  very  mistaken 
and  a  very  dangerous  principle.  I  must  beg  leave  to 
repeat,  what  I  took  the  liberty  of  suggesting  to  you 
in  my  last  letter,  that  Ireland  is  a  (5ountry  in  the 
same  climate  and  of  the  same  natural  qualities  and 
productions  with  this,  and  has  consequently  no  oth- 
er means  of  growing  wealthy  in  herself,  or,  in  other 
words,  of  being  useful  to  us,  but  by  doing  the  very 
same  things  which  wo  do  for  the  same  purposes.  I 
hope  that  in  Great  Britain  we  shall  always  pursue, 
without  exception,  evcri/  means  of  prosperity,  and,  of 
course,  that  Ireland  will  interfere  with  us  in  some- 


TWO   LETTERS   TO   GENTLEMEN   IN   BRISTOL.        253 

thing  or  otlier :  for  either,  in  order  to  limit  her,  we 
■must  restrain  ourselves,  or  we  must  fall  into  that 
shocking  conclusion,  that  we  are  to  keep  our  yet 
remaining  dependency  under  a  general  and  indis- 
criminate restraint  fur  the  mere  purpose  of  oppres- 
sion. Indeed,  Sir,  England  and  Ireland  may  flourish 
together.  The  world  is  large  enough  for  us  both. 
Let  it  be  our  care  not  to  make  ourselves  too  little 
for  it. 

I  know  it  is  said,  that  the  people  of  Ireland  do  not 
pay  the  same  taxes,  and  therefore  ought  not  in  equity 
to  enjoy  the  same  benefits  with  this.  I  had  liopes  that 
the  unhappy  phantom  of  a  compulsory  equal  taxation 
had  haunted  us  long  enough.  I  do  assure  you,  that, 
until  it  is  entirely  banished  from  our  imaginations, 
(where  alone  it  has,  or  can  have,  any  existence,)  we 
shall  2iever  cease  to  do  ourselves  the  most  substantial 
injuries.  To  that  argument  of  equal  taxation  I  can 
only  say,  that  Ireland  pays  as  many  taxes  as  those 
who  arc  the  best  judges  of  her  powers  are  of  opinion 
she  can  bear.  To  bear  more,  she  must  have  more 
ability ;  and,  in  the  order  of  Nature,  the  advantage 
must  precede  the  charge.  This  disposition  of  things 
being  the  law  of  God,  neither  you  nor  I  can  alter  it. 
So  that,  if  you  will  have  more  help  from  Ireland,  you 
must  previously  supply  her  with  more  means.  I  be- 
lieve it  will  be  found,  that,  if  men  are  suffered  freely 
to  cultivate  their  natural  advantages,  a  virtual  equal- 
ity of  contribution  will  come  in  its  own  time,  and  will 
flow  by  an  easy  descent  through  its  own  proper  and 
natural  channels.  An  attempt  to  disturb  that  course, 
and  to  force  Nature,  will  only  bring  on  universal  dis- 
content, distress,  and  confusion. 

You  tell  me.  Sir,  that  you  prefer  an  union  with 


254        TWO   LETTERS   TO    GENTLEMEN    IN    BRISTOL. 

Ireland  to  the  little  regulations  which  are  proposed 
in  Parliament.  This  union  is  a  great  question  of 
state,  to  which,  when  it  comes  properly  before  mo  in 
my  Parliamentary  capacity,  I  shall  give  an  honest  and 
unprejudiced  consideration.  However,  it  is  a  settled 
rule  with  me,  to  make  the  most  of  my  actual  situa- 
tion, and  not  to  refuse  to  do  a  proper  tiling  because 
there  is  something  else  more  proper  which  I  am  not 
able  to  do.  This  union  is  a  business  of  difficulty, 
and,  on  the  principles  of  your  letter,  a  business  im- 
practicable. Until  it  can  be  matured  into  a  feasible 
and  desirable  scheme,  I  wish  to  have  as  close  an  union 
of  interest  and  affection  with  Ireland  as  I  can  have ; 
and  that,  I  am  sure,  is  a  far  better  thing  than  any 
nominal  union  of  government. 

France,  and  indeed  most  extensive  empires,  which 
by  various  designs  and  fortunes  have  grown  into  one 
great  mass,  contain  many  provinces  that  are  very  dif- 
ferent from  each  other  in  privileges  and  modes  of 
government ;  and  they  raise  their  supplies  in  differ- 
ent ways,  in  different  proportioiis,  and  under  differ- 
ent authorities  :  yet  none  of  them  are  for  this  reason 
curtailed  of  their  natural  rights  ;  but  they  carry  on 
trade  and  manufactures  with  perfect  equality.  In 
some  way  or  other  the  true  balance  is  found ;  and 
all  of  them  arc  properly  poised  and  harmonized.  How 
much  have  you  lost  by  the  participation  of  Scotland 
in  all  your  commerce  ?  The  external  trade  of  Eng- 
land has  more  than  doubled  since  that  period ;  and  I 
believe  your  internal  (which  is  the  most  advanta- 
geous) has  been  augmented  at  least  fourfold.  Such 
virtue  there  is  in  liberality  of  sentiment,  that  you 
have  grown  richer  even  by  the  partnership  of  pov- 
erty. 


TWO    LETTERS   TO    GENTLE5IEN    IN   BRISTOL.        255 

If  you  think  that  this  participation  was  a  loss, 
commercially  considered,  but  that  it  has  been  com- 
pensated by  the  share  which  Scotland  has  taken  in 
defraying  the  public  charge,  I  believe  you  have  not 
very  carefully  looked  at  the  public  accounts.  Ireland, 
Sir,  pays  a  great  deal  more  than  Scotland,  and  is  per- 
haps as  much  and  as  effectually  united  to  England 
as  Scotland  is.  But  if  Scotland,  instead  of  paying 
little,  fiad  paid  nothing  at  all,  we  should  be  gainers, 
not  losers,  by  acquiring  the  hearty  cooperation  of  an 
active,  intelligent  people  towards  the  increase  of  the 
common  stock,  instead  of  our  being  employed  in 
watching  and  counteracting  them,  and  their  being 
employed  in  watching  and  counteracting  us,  with  the 
peevish  and  churlish  jealousy  of  rivals  and  enemies 
on  both  sides. 

I  am  sure.  Sir,  that  the  commercial  experience  of 
the  merchants  of  Bristol  will  soon  disabuse  them  of 
the  prejudice,  that  they  can  trade  no  longer,  if  coun- 
tries more  lightly  taxed  are  permitted  to  deal  in  the 
same  commodities  at  the  same  markets.  You  know, 
that,  in  fact,  you  trade  very  largely  where  you  are 
met  by  the  goods  of  all  nations.  You  even  pay  high 
duties  on  the  import  of  your  goods,  and  afterwards 
undersell  nations  less  taxed,  at  their  own  markets, 
and  where  goods  of  the  same  kind  are  not  charged 
at  all.  If  it  were  otherwise,  you  could  trade  very 
little.  You  know  that  the  price  of  all  sorts  of  manu- 
facture is  not  a  great  deal  enhanced  (except  to  the 
domestic  consumer)  by  any  taxes  paid  in  this  coun 
tiy.     This  I  might  very  easily  prove. 

The  same  consideration  will  relieve  you  from  the 
apprehension  you  express  with  relation  to  sugars, 
and  the  difference  of  the  duties  paid  here  and  in  Ire- 


256        TWO    LETTERS    TO    GENTLEMEN   IN    BRISTOL. 

land.  Those  duties  affect  the  interior  consumer  only, 
and  for  obvious  reasons,  relative  to  the  interest  of 
revenue  itself,  they  must  be  proportioned  to  his  abil- 
ity of  payment ;  but  in  all  cases  in  which  sugar  can 
be  an  object  of  commerce,  and  therefore  (in  this  view) 
of  rivalship,  you  are  sensible  that  you  are  at  least  on 
a  par  with  Ireland.  As  to  your  apprehensions  con- 
cerning the  more  advantageous  situation  of  Ireland 
for  some  branches  of  commerce,  (for  it  is  so  hxit  for 
some,)  I  trust  you  will  not  find  them  more  serious. 
Milford  Haven,  which  is  at  your  door,  may  serve  to 
show  you  that  the  mere  advantage  of  ports  is  not 
the  thing  which  shifts  the  seat  of  commerce  from  one 
part  of  the  world  to  the  other.  If  I  thought  you  in- 
clined to  take  up  this  matter  on  local  considerations, 
I  should  state  to  you,  that  I  do  not  know  any  part  of 
the  kingdom  so  well  situated  for  an  advantageous 
commerce  with  Ireland  as  Bristol,  and  that  none 
would  be  so  likely  to  profit  of  its  prosperity  as  our 
city.  But  your  profit  and  theirs  must  concur.  Beg- 
gary and  bankruptcy  are  not  the  circumstances  which 
invite'to  an  intercourse  with  that  or  with  any  coun- 
try ;  and  I  believe  it  will  be  found  invariably  true, 
that  the  superfluities  of  a  rich  nation  furnish  a  bet- 
ter object  of  trade  than  the  necessities  of  a  poor 
one.  It  is  the  interest  of  the  commercial  world  that 
wealth  should  be  found  everywhere. 

The  true  ground  of  fear,  in  my  opinion,  is  this: 
that  Ireland,  from  the  vicious  system  of  its  internal 
polity,  will  be  a  long  time  before  it  can  derive  any 
benefit  from  the  liberty  now  granted,  or  from  any 
thing  else.  But,  as  I  do  not  vote  advantages  in  hopes 
that  they  may  not  be  enjoyed,  I  will  not  lay  any  stress 
upon  this  consideration.     I  rather  wish  that  the  Par- 


TWO   LETTERS   TO   GENTLEMEN   IN   BRISTOL.        257 

liament  of  Ireland  may,  in  its  own  wisdom,  remove 
these  impediments,  and  put  their  country  in  a  condi- 
tion to  avail  itself  of  its  natural  advantages.  If  they 
do  not,  the  fault  is  with  them,  and  not'with  us. 

I  have  written  this  long  letter  in  order  to  give  all 
possible  satisfaction  to  my  constituents  with  regard 
to  the  part  I  have  taken  in  this  affair.  It  gave  me 
inexpressible  concern  to  find  that  my  conduct  had 
been  a  cause  of  uneasiness  to  any  of  them.  Next  to 
my  honor  and  conscience,  I  have  nothing  so  near  and 
dear  to  me  as  their  approbation.  However,  I  had 
much  rather  run  the  risk  of  displeasing  than  of  injur- 
ing them,  —  if  I  am  driven  to  make  such  an  option. 
You  obligingly  lament  that  you  are  not  to  have  me 
for  your  advocate  ;  but  if  I  had  been  capable  of  act- 
ing as  an  advocate  in  opposition  to  a  plan  so  perfectly 
consonant  to  my  known  principles,  and  to  the  ojDin- 
ions  I  had  publicly  declared  on  an  hundred  occasions, 
I  should  only  disgrace  myself,  without  supporting, 
with  the  smallest  degree  of  credit  or  effect,  the  cause 
you  wished  me  to  undertake.  I  should  have  lost  the 
only  thing  which  can  make  such  abilities  as  mine  of 
any  use  to  the  world  now  or  hereafter  :  I  mean  that 
authority  which  is  derived  from  an  opinion  that  a 
member  speaks  the  language  of  truth  and  sincerity, 
and  that  he  is  not  ready  to  take  up  or  lay  down  a 
great  political  system  for  the  convenience  of  the  hour, 
that  he  is  in  Parliament  to  support  his  opinion  of  the 
public  good,  and  does  not  form  his  opinion  in  order 
to  get  into  Parliament,  or  to  continue  in  it.  It  is  in 
a  great  measure  for  your  sake  that  I  wish  to  preserve 
this  character.  Without  it,  I  am  sure,  I  should  be  ill 
able  to  discharge,  by  any  service,  the  smallest  part  of 
tliat  debt  of  gratitude  and  affection  which  I  owe  you 

VOL.    II.  17 


258        TWO   LETTERS  TO   GENTLEMEN   IN   BRISTOL. 

for  the  groat  and  honorable  trust  yon  have  reposed 
in  me. 

I  am,  with  the  highest  regard  and  esteem.  Sir, 

Yoitr  most  obedient  and  humble  servant, 

E.  B. 

Beaconsfield,  23rd  April,  1778. 


copt  of  a  letter  to  messrs.  «««****  *««**»  and 

co.,  bristol. 

Gentlemen,  — 

It  gives  me  the  most  sensible  concern  to  find  that 
my  vote  on  the  resolutions  relative  to  the  trade  of 
Ireland  has  not  been  fortunate  enough  to  meet  with 
your  approbation.  I  have  explained  at  large  the 
grounds  of  my  conduct  on  that  occasion  in  my  let- 
ters to  the  Merchants'  Hall ;  but  my  very  sincere 
regard  and  esteem  for  you  will  not  permit  me  to  let 
the  matter  pass  without  an  explanation  which  is  par- 
ticular to  yourselves,  and  which  I  hope  will  prove 
satisfactory  to  you. 

You  tell  me  that  the  conduct  of  your  late  member 
is  not  much  wondered  at ;  but  you  seem  to  be  at  a 
loss  to  account  for  mine  ;  and  you  lament  that  I  have 
taken  so  decided  a  part  against  my  constituents. 

This  is  rather  an  heavy  imputation.  Does  it,  then, 
really  appear  to  you  that  the  propositions  to  which 
you  refer  are,  on  the  face  of  them,  so  manifestly 
wrong,  and  so  certainly  injurious  to  the  trade  and 
manufactures  of  Great  Britain,  and  particularly  to 
yours,  that  no  man  could  think  of  proposing  or  sup- 
porting them,  except  from  resentment  to  you,  or  from 


TWO   LETTERS   TO   GENTLEMEN   IN   BRISTOL.        259 

some  other  oblique  motive  ?  If  you  suppose  your 
late  member,  or  if  you  suppose  me,  to  act  upon  other 
reasons  than  we  choose  to  avow,  to  what  do  you  at- 
tribute the  conduct  of  the  othei-  members,  who  in  the 
beginning  almost  unanimously  adopted  those  resolu- 
tions ?  To  what  do  you  attribute  the  strong  part 
taken  by  the  ministers,  and,  along  with  the  ministers, 
by  several  of  their  most  declared  opponents  ?  This 
does  not  indicate  a  ministerial  job,  a  party  design, 
or  a  provincial  or  local  purpose.  It  is,  therefore,  not 
so  absolutely  clear  that  the  measure  is  wrong,  or 
likely  to  be  injurious  to  the  true  interests  of  any 
place  or  any  person. 

The  reason.  Gentlemen,  for  taking  this  step,  at  this 
time,  is  but  too  obvious  and  too  urgent.  I  cannot 
imagine  that  you  forget  the  great  war  which  has 
been  carried  on  with  so  little  success  (and,  as  I 
thought,  with  so  little  policy)  in  America,  or  that 
you  are  not  aware  of  the  other  great  wars  which  are 
impending.  Ireland  has  been  called  upon  to  repel 
the  attacks  of  enemies  of  no  small  power,  brought 
upon  her  by  councils  in  which  she  has  had  no  share. 
The  very  purpose  and  declared  object  of  that  original 
war,  which  has  brought  other  wars  and  other  ene- 
mies on  Ireland,  was  not  very  flattering  to  her  dig- 
nity, her  interest,  or  to  the  very  principle  of  her  lib- 
erty. Yet  she  submitted  patiently  to  the  evils  she 
suffered  from  an  attempt  to  subdue  to  your  obedience 
countries  whose  very  commerce  was  not  open  to  her. 
America  was  to  be  conquered  in  order  that  Ireland 
should  7iot  trade  thither ;  whilst  the  miserable  trade 
which  she  is  permitted  to  carry  on  to  other  places  has 
been  torn  to  pieces  in  the  struggle.  In  this  situation, 
are  we  neither  to  suffer  her  to  have  any  real  interest 


260        TWO    LETTERS   TO    GENTLEMEN    IN    BRISTOL. 

in  our  quarrel,  or  to  be  flattered  with  the  hope  of  any 
future  means  of  bearing  the  burdens  which  she  is  to 
incur  in  defending  herself  against  enemies  which  we 
have  brought  upon  her  ? 

I  cannot  set  my  face  against  such  arguments.  Is 
it  quite  fair  to  suppose  that  I  have  no  other  motive 
for  yielding  to  them  but  a  desire  of  acting  against 
my  constituents  ?  It  is  for  you,  and  for  yovr  interest, 
as  a  dear,  cherished,  and  respected  part  Ox  a  valuable 
whole,  that  I  have  taken  my  share  in  this  question. 
You  do  not,  you  cannot,  suffer  by  it.  If  honesty  be 
true  policy  with  regard  to  the  transient  interest  of 
individuals,  it  is  much  more  certainly  so  with  regard 
to  the  permanent  interests  of  communities.  I  know 
that  it  is  but  too  natural  for  us  to  see  our  own  certain 
ruin  in  the  possible  prosperity  of  other  people.  It  is 
hard  to  persuade  us  that  everything  which  is  got  by 
another  is  not  taken  from  ourselves.  But  it  is  fit  that 
we  should  get  the  better  of  these  suggestions,  which 
come  from  what  is  not  the  best  and  soundest  part  of 
our  nature,  and  that  we  should  form  to  ourselves  a 
way  of  thinking,  more  rational,  more  just,  and  more 
religious.  Trade  is  not  a  limited  thing :  as  if  the 
objects  of  mutual  demand  and  consumption  could 
not  stretch  beyond  the  bounds  of  oiu'  jealousies.  God 
has  given  the  earth  to  the  children  of  men,  and  He 
has  undoubtedly,  in  giving  it  to  them,  given  them 
what  is  abundantly  sufficient  for  all  their  exigencies  : 
not  a  scanty,  but  a  most  liberal,  provision  for  them  all. 
The  Author  of  our  nature  has  written  it  strongly  in 
that  nature,  and  has  promulgated  the  same  law  in  His 
written  word,  that  man  shall  eat  his  bread  by  his 
labor ;  and  I  am  persuaded  that  no  man,  and  no 
combmation  of  men,  for  their  own  ideas  of  their  par- 


TWO   LETTERS   TO   GENTLEMEN   IN  BRISTOL.        2G1 

ticular  profit,  can,  without  great  impiety,  undertake 
to  say  that  he  shall  not  do  so,  —  that  they  have  no 
sort  of  right  either  to  prevent  the  labor  or  to  with- 
hold the  bread.  Ireland  having  received  no  compen 
satio7i,  directly  or  indirectly,  for  any  restraints  on 
their  trade,  ought  not,  in  justice  or  common  honesty, 
to  be  made  subject  to  such  restraints.  I  do  not  mean 
to  impeach  the  right  of  the  Parliament  of  Great  Brit- 
ain to  make  laws  for  the  trade  of  Ireland  :  I  only 
speak  of  what  laws  it  is  right  for  Parliament  to 
make. 

It  is  nothing  to  an  oppressed  people,  to  say  that  in 
part  they  are  protected  at  our  charge.  The  military 
force  which  shall  be  kept  up  in  order  to  cramp  the 
natural  faculties  of  a  people,  and  to  prevent  their 
arrival  to  their  utmost  prosperity,  is  the  instrument 
of  their  servitude,  not  the  means  of  their  protection. 
To  protect  men  is  to  forward,  and  not  to  restrain, 
their  improvement.  Else,  what  is  it  more  than  to 
avow  to  them,  and  to  the  world,  that  you  guard  them 
from  others  only  to  make  them  a  prey  to  yourself  ? 
This  fundamental  nature  of  protection  does  not  be- 
long to  free,  but  to  all  governments,,  and  is  as  valid 
in  Turkey  as  in  Great  Britain.  No  government  ought 
to  own  that  it  exists  for  the  purpose  of  checking  the 
prosperity  of  its  people,  or  that  there  is  such  a  prin- 
ciple involved  in  its  policy. 

Under  the  impression  of  these  sentiments,  (and  not 
as  wanting  every  attention  to  my  constituents  which 
affection  and  gratitude  could  inspire,)  I  voted  for 
these  bills  which  give  you  so  much  trouble.  I  voted 
for  them,  not  as  doing  complete  justice  to  Ireland, 
but  as  being  something  less  unjust  than  the  general 
prohibition   which   has   hitherto  prevailed.     I  hear 


262        TWO   LETTERS   TO   GENTLEMEN   IN   BRISTOL. 

some  discourse  as  if,  in  one  or  two  paltry  duties  on 
materials,  Ireland  had  a  preference,  and  that  those 
who  set  themselves  against  this  act  of  scanty  justice 
assert  that  they  are  only  contending  for  an  equality. 
What  equality?  Do  they  forget  that  the  whole 
woollen  manufacture  of  Ireland,  the  most  extensive 
and  profitable  of  any,  and  the  natural  staple  of  that 
kingdom,  has  been  in  a  manner  so  destroyed  by  re- 
strictive laws  of  ours,  and  (at  our  persuasion,  and  on 
our  promises)  by  restrictive  laws  of  their  oww,  that  in 
a  few  years,  it  is  probable,  they  will  not  be  able  to 
wear  a  coat  of  their  own  fabric  ?  Is  this  equality  ? 
Do  gentlemen  forget  that  the  understood  faith  up- 
on which  they  were  persuaded  to  such  an  unnatural 
act  has  not  been  kept,  —  but  a  linen-manufacture  has 
been  set  up,  and  highly  encouraged,  against  them  ?  Is 
this  equality  ?  Do  they  forget  the  state  of  the  trade  of 
Ireland  in  beer,  so  great  an  article  of  consumption, 
and  which  now  stands  in  so  mischievous  a  position 
with  regard  to  their  revenue,  their  manufacture,  and 
their  agriculture  ?  Do  they  find  any  equality  in  all 
this  ?  Yet,  if  the  least  step  is  taken  towards  doing 
them  common  justice  in  the  slightest  articles  for  the 
most  limited  markets,  a  cry  is  raised,  as  if  we  were 
going  to  be  ruined  by  partiality  to  Ireland. 

Gentlemen,  I  know  that  the  deficiency  in  these  ar- 
guments is  made  up  (not  by  you,  but  by  others)  by 
the  usual  resource  on  such  occasions,  the  confidence 
in  military  force  and  superior  power.  But  that  ground 
of  confidence,  which  at  no  time  was  perfectly  just,  or 
the  avowal  of  it  tolerably  decent,  is  at  this  time  very 
unseasonable.  Late  experience  has  shown  that  it 
cannot  be  altogether  relied  upon  ;  and  many,  if  not 
all,  of  our  present  difficulties  have  arisen  from  put- 


TWO   LETTERS  TO   GENTLEMEN   IN   BRISTOL.        263 

ting  our  trust  in  what  may  very  possibly  fail,  and, 
if  it  should  fail,  leaves  those  who  are  hurt  by  such 
a  reliance  without  pity.  "Whereas  honesty  and  jus- 
tice, reason  and  equity,  go  a  very  great  way  in  secur- 
ing prosperity  to  those  who  use  them,  and,  in  case 
of  failure,  secure  the  best  retreat  and  the  most  hon- 
orable consolations. 

It  is  very  unfortunate  that  we  should  consider  those 
as  rivals,  whom  we  ought  to  regard  as  fellow-laborers 
in  a  common  cause.  Ireland  has  never  made  a  single 
step  in  its  progress  towards  prosperity,  by  which  you 
have  not  had  a  share,  and  perhaps  the  greatest  share, 
in  the  benefit.  That  progress  has  been  chiefly  owing 
to  her  own  natural  advantages,  and  her  own  efforts, 
which,  after  a  long  time,  and  by  slow  degrees,  have 
prevailed  in  some  measure  over  the  mischievous  sys- 
tems which  have  been  adopted.  Far  enough  she  is 
still  from  having  arrived  even  at  an  ordinary  state  of 
perfection  ;  and  if  our  jealousies  were  to  be  converted 
into  politics  as  systematically  as  some  would  have 
them,  the  trade  of  Ireland  would  vanish  out  of  the 
system  of  commerce.  But,  believe  me,  if  Ireland  is 
beneficial  to  you,  it  is  so  not  from  the  parts  in  which  it 
is  restrained,  but  from  those  in  which  it  is  left  free, 
though  not  left  unrivalled.  The  greater  its  freedom, 
the  greater  must  be  your  advantage.  If  you  should 
lose  in  one  way,  you  will  gain  in  twenty. 

Whilst  I  remain  under  this  unalterable  and  power- 
ful conviction,  you  will  not  wonder  at  the  decided  part 
I  take.  It  is  my  custom  so  to  do,  when  I  see  my  way 
clearly  before  me,  and  when  I  know  that  I  am  not 
misled  Ijy  any  passion  or  any  personal  interest,  which 
in  this  case  I  am  very  sure  I  am  not.  I  fmd  that  dis- 
agreeable things  are  circulated  among  my  constitu- 


264        TWO   LETTERS   TO   GENTLEBIEN   IN   BRISTOL. 

ents  ;  and  I  wisli  my  sentiments,  -which  form  my  jus- 
tification, may  be  equally  general  with  the  circulation 
against  me.  I  have  the  honor  to  be,  with  the  greatest 
regard  and  esteem,  Gentlemen, 

Your  most  obedient  and  humble  servant, 

E.  B. 

Westminster,  May  2,  1778. 

I  send  the  bills. 


SPEECH 

ON  PEESENTING  TO  THE  HOUSE  OF  COMMONS 

(ON  THE  llTH  FEBRUARY,  1780) 

A    PLAN 

FOB 

THE  BETTER   SECURITY  OF  THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF 
PARLIAMENT,  AM)  THE  ECONOMICAL  REFOR- 
MATION  OF   THE   CIVIL   AND   OTHER 
ESTABLISHMENTS. 


SPEECH. 


/I'll.  SPEAKER, — I  rise,  in, acquittal  of  my  en- 
gagement to  the  House,  in  obedience  to  the 
strong  and  just  requisition  of  my  constituents,  and,  I 
am  persuaded,  in  conformity  to  the  unanimous  wishes 
of  the  whole  nation,  to  submit  to  the  wisdom  of  Par- 
liament "  A  Plan  of  Reform  in  the  Constitution  of 
Several  Parts  of  the  Public  Economy." 

I  have  endeavored  that  this  plan  should  include, 
in  its  execution,  a  considerable  reduction  of  improper 
expense  ;  that  it  should  effect  a  conversion  of  unprof- 
itable titles  into  a  productive  estate ;  that  it  should 
lead  to,  and  indeed  almost  compel,  a  provident  ad- 
ministration of  such  sums  of  public  money  as  must 
remain  under  discretionary  trusts  ;  that  it  should 
render  the  incurring  debts  on  the  civil  establish- 
ment (which  must  ultimately  affect  national  strength 
and  national  credit)  so  very  dif][icult'  as  to  become 
next  to  impracticable. 

But  what,  I  confess,  siras  uppermost  with  me,  what 
I  bent  the  whole  force  of  my  mind  to,  was  the  reduc- 
tion of  that  corrupt  influence  which  is  itself  the  per- 
ennial spring  of  all  prodigality  and  of  all  disorder,  — 
which  loads  us  more  than  millions  of  debt,  —  which 
takes  away  vigor  from  our  arms,  wisdom  from  our 
councils,  and  every  shadow  of  authority  and  credit 
from  the  most  venerable  parts  of  our  Constitution. 

Sir,  I  assure  you  very  solemnly,  and  with  a  very 


268  SPEECH   ON   THE  PLAN 

clear  conscience,  that  nothing  in  the  world  has  led  me 
to  such  an  undertaking  but  my  zeal  for  the  honor  of 
this  House,  and  the  settled,  habitual,  systematic  affec- 
tion I  bear  to  the  cause  and  to  the  principles  of  gov- 
ernment. 

I  enter  perfectly  into  the  nature  and  consequences 
of  my  attempt,  and  I  advance  to  it  with  a  tremor 
that  shakes  me  to  the  inmost  fibre  of  my  frame.  I 
feel  that  I  engage  in  a  business,  in  itself  most  ungra- 
cious, totally  wide  of  the  course  of  prudent  conduct, 
and,  I  really  think,  the  most  completely  adverse  that 
can  be  imagined  to  the  natural  turn  and  temper  of 
my  own  mind.  I  know  that  all  parsimony  is  of  a 
quality  approaching  to  unkindness,  and  that  (on 
some  person  or  other)  every  reform  must  operate  as 
a  sort  of  punishment.  Indeed,  the  whole  class  of  the 
severe  and  restrictive  virtues  are  at  a  market  almost 
too  high  for  humanity.  What  is  worse,  there  are 
very  few  of  those  virtues  which  are  not  capable  of 
being  imitated,  and  even  outdone  in  many  of  their 
most  striking  effects,  by  the  worst  of  vices.  Malignity 
and  envy  will  carve  much  more  deeply,  and  finish 
much  more  sharply,  in  the  work  of  retrenchment, 
than  frugality  and  providence.  I  do  not,  therefore, 
wonder  that  gentlemen  have  kept  away  from  such  a 
task,  as  well  from  good-nature  as  from  prudence. 
Private  feeling  might,  indeed,  be  overborne  by  legis- 
lative reason  ;  and  a  man  of  a  long-sighted  and  a 
strong-nerved  humanity  might  bring  himself  not  so 
much  to  consider  from  whom  he  takes  a  superfluous 
enjoyment  as  for  whom  in  the  end  he  may  preserve 
the  absolute  necessaries  of  life. 

But  it  is  much  more  easy  to  reconcile  this  mea^-iire 
to  humanity  than  to  bring  it  to  any  agreement  with 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  269 

prudence.  I  do  not  mean  that  little,  selfish,  pitiful, 
bastard  thing  which  sometimes  goes  by  the  name  of ' 
a  family  in  which  it.  is  not  legitimate  and  to  which  it 
is  a  disgrace  ;  —  I  mean  even  that  public  and  enlarged 
prudence,  which,  apprehensive  of  being  disabled  from 
rendering  acceptable  services  to  the  world,  withholds 
itself  from  those  that  are  invidious.  Gentlemen  who 
are,  with  me,  verging  towards  the  decline  of  life,  and 
are  apt  to  form  their  ideas  of  kings  from  kings  of 
former  times,  might  dread  the  anger  of  a  reigning 
prince  ;  —  they  who  are  more  provident  of  the  future, 
or  by  being  young  are  more  mterested  in  it,  might 
tremble  at  the  resentment  of  the  successor ;  they 
might  see  a  long,  dull,  dreary,  unvaried  visto  of 
despair  and  exclusion,  for  half  a  century,  before 
them.  This  is  no  pleasant  prospect  at  the  outset 
of  a  political  journey. 

Besides  this,  Sir,  the  private  enemies  to  be  made  in 
all  attempts  of  this  kind  are  innumerable  ;  and  their 
enmity  will  be  the  more  bitter,  and  the  more  danger- 
ous too,  because  a  sense  of  dignity  will  oblige  them 
to  conceal  the  cause  of  their  resentment.  Very  few 
men  of  great  families  and  extensive  connections  but 
vdll  feel  the  smart  of  a  cutting  reform,  in  some  close 
relation,  some  bosom  friend,  some  pleasant  acquaint- 
ance, some  dear,  protected  dependant.  Emolument 
is  taken  from  some  ;  patronage  from  others  ;  objects 
of  pursuit  from  all.  Men  forced  into  an  involuntary 
independence  will  abhor  the  authors  of  a  blessing 
which  in  their  eyes  has  so  very  near  a  resemblance  to 
a  curse.  Wlien  officers  are  removed,  and  the  offices 
remain,  you  may  set  the  gratitude  of  some  against 
the  anger  of  others,  you  may  oppose  the  friends  you 
oblige  against  the  enemies  you  provoke.     But  ser- 


270  SPEECH   OIS    THE   PLAN 

vices  of  the  present  ^ort  create  no  attachments.  The 
•individual  good  felt  in  a  public  benefit  is  compara- 
tively so  small,  comes  round  through  such  an  in- 
volved labyrinth  of  intricate  and  tedious  revolutions, 
whilst  a  present  personal  detriment  is  so  heavy,  where 
it  falls,  and  so  instant  in  its  operation,  that  tlie  cold 
commendation  of  a  public  advantage  never  was  and 
never  will  be  a  match  for  the  quick  sensibility  of  a 
private  loss ;  and  you  may  depend  upon  it,  Sir,  that, 
when  many  people  have  an  interest  in  railing,  sooner 
or  later,  they  will  bring  a  considerable  degree  of 
unpopularity  upon  any  measure.  So  that,  for  the 
present  at  least,  the  reformation  will  operate  against 
the  reformers ;  and  revenge  (as  against  them  at  the 
least)  will  produce  all  the  effects  of  corruption. 

This,  Sir,  is  almost  always  the  case,  where  the  plan 
has  complete  success.  But  how  stands  the  matter  in 
the  mere  attempt  ?  Nothing,  you  know,  is  more  com- 
mon than  for  men  to  wish,  and  call  loudly  too,  for  a 
reformation,  who,  when  it  arrives,  do  by  no  means 
like  the  severity  of  its  aspect.  Reformation  is  one 
of  those  pieces  which  must  be  put  at  some  distance  in 
order  to  please.  Its  greatest  favorers  love  it  better  in 
the  abstract  than  in  the  substance.  "When  any  old 
prejudice  of  their  own,  or  any  interest  that  they  value, 
is  touched,  they  become  scrupulous,  they  become  cap- 
tious ;  and  every  man  has  his  separate  exception. 
Some  pluck  out  the  black  hairs,  some  the  gray ;  one 
point  must  be  given  up  to  one,  another  point  must 
be  yielded  to  another ;  nothing  is  suffered  to  prevail 
upon  its  own  principle ;  the  whole  is  so  frittered 
down  and  disjointed,  that  scarcely  a  trace  of  the 
original  scheme  remains.  Thus,  between  the  resist- 
ance of  power,  and  the  unsystematical  process  of  pop- 


FOB  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  271 

ularity,  the  undertaker  and  tlie  undertaking  are  both 
exposed,  and  the  poor  reformer  is  hissed  off  the  stage 
both  by  friends  and  foes. 

Observe,  Sir,  that  the  apology  for  my  undertaking 
(an  apology  which,  though  long,  is  no  longer  than 
necessary)  is  not  grounded  on  my  want  of  the  fullest 
sense  of  the  difficult  and  invidious  nature  of  the  task 
I  undertake.  I  risk  odium,  if  I  succeed,  and  con- 
tempt, if  I  fail.  My  excuse  must  rest  in  mine  and 
your  conviction  of  the  absolute,  urgent  necessity  there 
is  that  something  of  the  kind  should  be  done.  If 
there  is  any  sacrifice  to  be  made,  either  of  estimation 
or  of  fortune,  the  smallest  is  the  best.  Commanders- 
in-chief  are  not  to  be  put  upon  the  forlorn  hope. 
But,  indeed,  it  is  necessary  that  the  attempt  should 
be  made.  It  is  necessary  from  our  own  political  cir- 
cumstances ;  it  is  necessary  from  the  operations  of 
the  enemy ;  it  is  necessary  from  the  demands  of  the 
people,  whose  desires,  when  they  do  not  militate 
with  the  stable  and  eternal  rules  of  justice  and  rea- 
son, (rules  which  are  above  us  and  above  them,) 
ought  to  be  as  a  law  to  a  House  of  Commons. 

As  to  our  circumstances,  I  do  not  mean  to  aggra- 
vate the  difficulties  of  them  by  the  strength  of  any 
coloring  whatsoever.  On  the  contrary,  I  observe, 
and  observe  with  pleasure,  that  our  affairs  rather 
wear  a  more  promising  aspect  than  they  did  on  the 
opening  of  this  session.  We  have  had  some  leading 
successes.  But  those  who  rate  them  at  the  highest 
(higher  a  great  deal,  indeed,  than  I  dare  to  do)  are  of 
opinion,  that,  upon  the  ground  of  such  advantages, 
we  cannot  at  this  time  hope  to  make  any  treaty  of 
peace  which  would  not  be  ruinous  and  completely 
disgraceful.     In  such  an  anxious  state  of  tilings,  if 


272  SPEECH   ON   THE    PLAN 

dawnings  of  success  serve  to  animate  our  diligence, 
tliej  are  good  ;  if  they  tend  to  increase  our  presump- 
tion, they  are  worse  than  defeats.  The  state  of  our 
affairs  shall,  then,  be  as  promising  as  any  one  may 
choose  to  conceive  it :  it  is,  however,  but  promising. 
"We  must  recollect,  that,  with  but  half  of  our  natural 
strength,  we  are  at  war  against  confederated  powers 
who  have  singly  threatened  us  with  ruin ;  we  must 
recollect,  that,  whilst  we  are  left  naked  on  one  side, 
our  other  flank  is  uncovered  by  any  alliance;  that, 
whilst  we  are  weighing  and  balancing  our  successes 
against  our  losses,  we  are  accumulating  debt  to  the 
amount  of  at  least  fourteen  millions  in  the  year. 
That  loss  is  certain. 

I  have  no  wish  to  deny  that  our  successes  are  as 
brilliant  as  any  one  chooses  to  make  them;  our  re- 
sources, too,  may,  for  me,  be  as  unfathomable  as  they 
are  represented.  Indeed,  they  are  just  whatever  the 
people  possess  and  will  submit  to  pay.  Taxing  is  an 
easy  business.  Any  projector  can  contrive  new  impo- 
sitions ;  any  bungler  can  add  to  the  old.  But  is  it 
altogether  wise  to  have  no  other  bounds  to  your 
impositions  than  the  patience  of  those  who  are  to 
bear  them  ? 

All  I  claim  upon  the  subject  of  your  resources  is 
this :  that  they  are  not  likely  to  be  increased  by  wast- 
ing them.  I  think  I  shall  be  permitted  to  assume 
that  a  system  of  frugality  will  not  lessen  your  riches, 
whatever  they  may  be.  I  believe  it  will  not  be  hotly 
disputed,  that  those  resources  which  lie  heavy  on  the 
Bubject  ought  not  to  be  objects  of  preference,  —  that 
they  ought  not  to  be  the  very  first  choice,  to  an  honest 
representative  of  the  people. 

This  is  all,  Sir,  that  I  shall  say  upon  our  circum- 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  273 

stances  and  our  resources :  I  mean  to  say  a  little 
more  on  the  operations  of  the  enemy,  because  this 
matter  seems  to  me  very  natural  in  our  present  de- 
liberation. When  I  look  to  the  other  side  of  the 
water,  I  cannot  help  recollecting  what  Pyrrhus  said, 
on  reconnoitring  the  Roman  camp :  —  "  These  bar- 
barians have  nothing  barbarous  in  their  discipline." 
When  I  look,  as  I  have  pretty  carefully  looked,  into 
the  proceedings  of  the  French  king,  I  am  sorry  to  say 
it,  I  see  nothing  of  the  character  and  genius  of  ar- 
bitrary finance,  none  of  the  bold  frauds  of  bankrupt 
power,  none  of  the  wild  struggles  and  plunges  of  des- 
potism in  distress,  —  no  lopping  off  from  the  capital 
of  debt,  no  suspension  of  interest,  no  robbery  under 
the  name  of  loan,  no  raising  the  value,  no  debasing 
the  substance  of  the  coin.  I  see  neither  Louis  the 
Fourteenth  nor  Louis  the  Fifteenth.  On  the  con- 
trary, I  behold,  with  astonishment,  rising  before  me, 
by  the  very  hands  of  arbitrary  power,  and  in  the  very 
midst  of  war  and  confusion,  a  regular,  methodical 
system  of  public  credit ;  I  behold  a  fabric  laid  on  the 
natural  and  solid  foundations  of  trust  and  confidence 
among  men,  and  rising,  by  fair  gradations,  order  over 
order,  according  to  the  just  rules  of  symmetry  and 
art.  What  a  reverse  of  things  !  Principle,  method, 
regularity,  economy,  frugality,  justice  to  individuals, 
and  care  of  the  people  are  the  resources  with  which 
France  makes  war  upon  Great  Britain.  God  avert 
the  omen  !  But  if  we  should  see  any  genius  in  war 
and  politics  arise  in  France  to  second  what  is  done 
in  the  bureau ! 1  turn  my  eyes  from  tho  conse- 
quences.   . 

The  noble  lord  in  the  blue  ribbon,  last  year,  treated 
all  this  with  contempt.     He  never  could  conceive  it 

VOL.  II.  18 


274  SPEECH   ON   THE   PLAN 

possible  that  the  French  minister  of  finance  could  go 
through  that  year  with  a  loan  of  but  seventeen  liun- 
dred  thousand  pounds,  and  that  he  should  be  able 
to  fund  that  loan  without  any  tax.  The  second  year, 
however,  opens  the  very  same  scene.  A  small  loan, 
a  loan  of  no  more  than  two  millions  five  hundred 
thousand  pounds,  is  to  carry  our  enemies  through  the 
service  of  this  year  also.  No  tax  is  raised  to  fund 
that  debt ;  no  tax  is  raised  for  the  current  services. 
1  am  credibly  informed  that  there  is  no  anticipa- 
tion whatsoever.  Compensations  *  are  correctly  made. 
Old  debts  continue  to  be  sunk  as  in  the  time  of  pro- 
found peace.  Even  payments  which  their  treasury 
had  been  authorized  to  suspend  during  the  time  of 
war  are  not  suspended. 

A  general  reform,  executed  through  every  depart- 
ment of  the  revenue,  creates  an  annual  income  of  more 
than  half  a  million,  whilst  it  facilitates  and  simplifies 
all  the  functions  of  administration.  The  king's  house- 
hold—  at  the  remotest  avenues  to  which  all  refor- 
mation has  been  hitherto  stopped,  that  household 
which  has  been  the  stronghold  of  prodigality,  the  vir- 
gin fortress  which  was  never  before  attacked  —  has 
been  not  only  not  defended,  but  it  has,  even  in  the 
forms,  been  surrendered  by  the  king  to  the  economy 
of  his  minister.  No  capitulation  ;  no  reserve.  Econ- 
omy has  entered  in  triumph  into  the  public  splendor 
of  the  monarch,  into  his  private  amusements,  into 
the  appointments  of  his  nearest  and  highest  relations. 
Economy  and  public  spirit  have  made  a  beneficent 
and  an  honest  spoil :  they  have  plundered  from  ex- 

*  This  term  comprehends  various  retributions  made  to  persons 
Whose  offices  are  taken  away,  or  who  in  any  other  way  suffer  by  the 
new  arrangements  that  are  made. 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  275 

travagaiice  and  luxury,  for  the  use  of  substantial 
service,  a  revenue  of  near  four  hundred  thousand 
pounds.  The  reform  of  the  finances,  joined  to  this 
reform  of  the  court,  gives  to  the  public  nine  hundred 
thousand  pounds  a  year,  and  upwards. 

The  minister  who  does  these  things  is  a  great 
man  ;  but  the  king  who  desires  that  they  should  be 
done  is  a  far  greater.  We  must  do  justice  to  our 
enemies  :  these  are  the  acts  of  a  patriot  king.  I  am 
not  in  dread  of  the  vast  armies  of  France ;  I  am  not 
in  dread  of  the  gallant  spirit  of  its  brave  and  numer- 
ous nobility ;  I  am  not  alarmed  even  at  the  great  navy 
which  has  been  so  miraculously  created.  All  these 
things  Louis  the  Fourteenth  had  before.  With  all 
these  things,  the  French  monarchy  has  more  than 
once  fallen  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  the  public  faith  of 
Great  Britain.  It  was  the  want  of  public  credit  which 
disabled  France  from  recovering  after  her  defeats,  or 
recovering  even  from  her  victories  and  triumphs. 
It  was  a  prodigal  court,  it  was  an  ill-ordered  revenue, 
that  sapped  the  foundations  of  all  her  greatness. 
Credit  cannot  exist  under  the  arm  of  necessity.  Ne- 
cessity strikes  at  credit,  I  allow,  with  a  heavier  and 
quicker  blow  under  an  arbitrary  monarchy  than 
under  a  limited  and  balanced  government ;  but  still 
necessity  and  credit  are  natural  enemies,  and  cannot 
be  long  reconciled  in  any  situation.  From  necessity 
and  corruption,  a  free  state  may  lose  the  spirit  of  that 
complex  constitution  which  is  tlic  foundation  of  con- 
fidence. On  the  other  hand,  I  am  far  from  being  sure 
that  a  monarchy,  when  once  it  is  properly  regulated, 
may  not  for  a  long  time  furnish  a  foundation  for 
credit  upon  the  solidity  of  its  maxims,  though  it 
afibrds  no  ground  of  trust  in  its  institutions.     I  am 


276  SPEECH   ON   THE   PLAN 

afraid  -I  see  in  England,  and  in  France,  something 
like  a  beginning  of  both  these  things.  I  wisli  I  may 
be  found  in  a  mistake. 

This  very  short  and  very  imperfect  state  of  what  is 
now  going  on  in  France  (the  last  circumstances  of 
which  I  received  in  about  eight  days  after  the  regis- 
try of  the  edict  *)  I  do  not,  Sir,  lay  before  you  for  any 
invidious  purpose.  It  is  in  order  to  excite  in  us  the 
spirit  of  a  noble  emulation.  Let  the  nations  make 
war  upon  each  other,  (since  we  must  make  war,)  not 
with  a  low  and  vulgar  malignity,  but  by  a  competition 
of  virtues.  This  is  the  only  way  by  whicli  both  parties 
can  gain  by  war.  The  French  have  imitated  us  :  let 
us,  through  them,  imitate  ourselves, —  ourselves  in 
our  better  and  happier  days.  If  public  frugality, 
under  whatever  men,  or  in  whatever  mode  of  govern- 
ment, is  national  strength,  it  is  a  strength  which  our 
enemies  are  in  possession  of  before  us. 

Sir,  I  am  well  aware  that  the  state  and  the  result 
of  the  French  economy  which  I  have  laid  before  you 
are  even  now  lightly  treated  by  some  who  ought 
never  to  speak  but  from  information.  Pains  have  not 
been  spared  to  represent  them  as  impositions  on  the 
public.  Let  me  tell  you.  Sir,  that  the  creation  of  a 
navy,  and  a  two  years'  war  without  taxing,  are  a  very 
singular  species  of  imposture.  But  be  it  so.  For 
what  end  does  Nccker  carry  on  this  delusion  ?  Is  it  to 
lower  the  estimation  of  the  crown  he  serves,  and  to 
render  his  own  administration  contemptible  ?  No ! 
No  !  He  is  conscious  that  the  sense  of  mankind  is  so 
clear  and  decided  in  favor  of  economy,  and  of  the 
weiglit  and  value  of  its  resources,  that  he  turns  him- 
self to  every  species  of  fraud  and  artifice  to  obtain  the 

*  Edict  registered  29th  January,  1780. 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  277 

more  reputation  of  it.  Men  do  not  affect  a  conduct 
that  tends  to  their  discredit.  Let  us,  then,  get  the 
better  of  Monsieur  Necker  in  his  own  way  ;  let  us  do 
in  reality  what  he  does  only  in  pretence  ;  let  us  turn 
his  French  tinsel  into  English  gold.  Is,  then,  the 
mere  opinion  and  appearance  of  frugality  and  good 
management  of  such  use  to  France,  and  is  the  sub- 
stance to  be  so  mischievous  to  England  ?  Is  the  very 
constitution  of  Nature  so  altered  by  a  sea  of  twenty 
miles,  that  economy  should  give  power  on  the  Con- 
tinent, and  that  profusion  should  give  it  here  ?  For 
God's  sake,  let  not  this  be  the  only  fashion  of  France 
which  we  refuse  to  copy ! 

To  the  last  kind  of  necessity,  the  desires  of  the  peo- 
ple, I  have  but  a  very  few  words  to  say.  The  minis- 
ters seem  to  contest  this  point,  and  affect  to  doubt 
whether  the  people  do  really  desire  a  plan  of  economy 
in  the  civil  government.  Sir,  this  is  too  ridiculous. 
It  is  impossible  that  they  should  not  desire  it.  It  is 
impossible  that  a  prodigality  which  draws  its  resour- 
ces from  their  indigence  should  be  pleasing  to  them. 
Little  factions  of  pensioners,  and  their  dependants, 
may  talk  another  language.  But  the  voice  of  Nature 
is  against  them,  and  it  will  be  heard.  The  people  of 
England  will  not,  they  cannot,  take  it  kindly,  that 
representatives  should  refuse  to  tlieir  constituents 
what  an  absolute  sovereign  voluntarily  offers  to  his 
subjects.  The  expression  of  the  petitions  is,  that, 
"  before  any  new  burdens  are  laid  upon  this  country^ 
effectual  measures  be  taken  by  this  House  to  inquire  in- 
to and  correct  the  gross  abuses  in  the  expenditure  of  pub- 
lic money. ^^ 

This  has  been  treated  by  the  noble  lord  in  the 
blue  ribbon  as  a  wiM,  iactious  language.    It  happens, 


278  SPEECH    ox    THE    PLAN 

however,  that  the  people,  in  their  address  to  iis,  use, 
almost  word  for  word,  the  same  terms  as  the  king  of 
France  uses  in  addressing  himself  to  his  people  ;  and 
it  differs  only  as  it  falls  short  of  the  French  king's 
idea  of  what  is  due  to  his  subjects.  "  To  convince," 
says  he,  "  our  faithful  subjects  of  the  desire  we  enter- 
tain not  to  recur  to  new  wipositions,  until  we  have 
first  exhausted  all  the  resources  which  order  and' 
economy  can  possibly  supply,"  &c.,  &c. 

These  desires  of  the  people  of  England,  which  come 
far  short  of  the  voluntary  concessions  of  the  king  of 
France,  are  moderate  indeed.  They  only  contend  that 
we  should  interweave  some  economy  with  the  taxes 
with  vhich  we  have  chosen  to  begin  the  war.  They 
request,  not  that  you  should  rely  upon  economy  exclu- 
sively, but  that  you  should  give  it  rank  and  prece- 
dence, in  the  order  of  the  ways  and  means  of  tliis 
single  session. 

But  if  it  were  possible  that  the  desires  of  our  con- 
stituents, desires  which  are  at  once  so  natural  and  so 
very  much  tempered  and  subdued,  should  have  no 
weight  with  an  House  of  Commons  which  has  its  eye 
elsewhere,  I  would  turn  my  eyes  to  the  very  quarter 
to  which  theirs  are  directed.  I  would  reason  this 
matter  with  the  House  on  the  mere  policy  of  the 
question ;  and  I  would  undertake  to  prove  that  an 
early  dereliction  of  abuse  is  the  direct  interest  of  gov- 
ernment, —  of  government  taken  abstractedly  from 
its  duties,  and  considered  merely  as  a  system  intend- 
ing its  own  conservation. 

If  there  is  any  one  eminent  criterion  which  above 
all  the  rest  distinguishes  a  wise  government  from 
an  administration  weak  and  improvident,  it  is  this : 
"  well  to  know  the  best  time  and  manner  of  yielding 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  279 

what  it  is  impossible  to  keep."  There  have  been,  Sir, 
and  tliere  are,  many  who  choose  to  chicane  with  tlieir 
situation  rather  than  be  instructed  by  it.  Those 
gentlemen  argue  against  every  desire  of  reformation 
upon  the  principles  of  a  criminal  prosecution.  It  is 
enough  for  them  to  justify  tlieir  adherence  to  a  per- 
nicious system,  that  it  is  not  of  their  contrivance,— 
that  it  is  an  inheritance  of  absurdity,  derived  to  them 
from  their  ancestors, — that  they  can  make  out  a  long 
and  unbroken  pedigree  of  mismanagers  that  have 
gone  before  them.  They  are  proud  of  the  antiquity 
of  their  house  ;  and  they  defend  their  errors  as  if 
they  were  defending  their  inheritance,  afraid  of  der- 
ogating from  their  nobility,  and  carefully  avoiding  a 
sort  of  blot  in  their  scutcheon,  which  they  think  would 
degrade  them  forever. 

It  was  thus  that  the  unfortunate  Charles  the  First 
defended  himself  on  the  practice  of  the  Stuart  who 
went  before  him,  and  of  all  tlie  Tudors.  His  partisans 
might  have  gone  to  the  Plantagenets.  They  might 
have  found  bad  examples  enough,  both  abroad  and 
at  home,  that  could  have  shown  an  ancient  and  illus- 
trious descent.  But  there  is  a  time  when  men  will 
not  suffer  bad  things  because  their  ancestors  have 
suffered  worse.  There  is  a  time  when  the  hoary 
head  of  inveterate  abuse  will  neither  draw  reverence 
nor  obtain  protection.  If  the  noble  lord  in  the  blue 
ribbon  pled,ds,  "  iVb^  (7i«7^^,"  to  the  charges  brought 
against  the  present  system  of  public  economy,  it  is 
not  possible  to  give  a  fair  verdict  by  which  he  will  not 
stand  acquitted.  But  pleading  is  not  our  present  busi- 
ness. His  plea  or  his  traverse  may  be  allowed  as  an 
answer  to  a  charge,  when  a  charge  is  made.  But  if  he 
puts  himself  in  the  way  to  obstruct  reformation,  then 


280  SPEECH    ON    THE   PLAN 

the  faults  of  his  office  instantly  become  his  own.  In- 
stead of  a  public  officer  in  an  abusive  department, 
whose  province  is  an  object  to  be  regulated,  he  be- 
comes a  criminal  who  is  to  be  punished.  I  do  most 
seriously  put  it  to  administration  to  consider  the 
wisdom  of  a  timely  reform.  Early  reformations  are 
amicable  arrangements  with  a  friend  in  power ;  late 
reformations  are  terms  imposed  upon  a  conquered 
enemy  :  early  reformations  are  made  in  cool  blood ; 
late  reformations  are  made  under  a  state  of  inflam- 
mation. In  that  state  of  things  the  people  behold  in 
government  nothing  that  is  respectable.  They  see  the 
abuse,  and  they  will  see  nothing  else.  They  fall  into 
the  temper  of  a  furious  populace  provoked  at  the  dis- 
order of  a  house  of  ill-fame  ;  they  never  attempt  to  cor- 
rect or  regulate  ;  they  go  to  work  by  the  sliortest  way : 
they  abate  the  nuisance,  they  pull  down  the  house. 

This  is  my  opinion  with  regard  to  the  true  interest 
of  government.  But  as  it  is  the  interest  of  govern- 
ment that  reformation  should  be  early,  it  is  the  inter- 
est of  the  people  that  it  should  be  temperate.  It  is 
their  interest,  because  a  temperate  reform  is  perma- 
nent, and  because  it  has  a  principle  of  growth. 
Whenever  we  improve,  it  is  right  to  leave  room  for 
a  further  improvement.  It  is  right  to  consider,  to 
look  about  us,  to  examine  the  effect  of  vvhat  we  have 
done.  Then  we  can  proceed  with  confidence,  be- 
cause we  can  proceed  with  intelligence.  Whereas 
in  hot  reformations,  in  what  men  more  zealous  than 
considerate  call  making  clear  work,  the  whole  is  gen- 
erally so  crude,  so  harsh,  so  indigested,  mixed  with 
so  much  imprudence  and  so  much  injustice,  so  con- 
trary to  the  whole  course  of  human  nature  and  hu- 
man institutions,  that  the  very  people  who  are  most 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  281 

eager  for  it  are  among  the  first  to  grow  disgusted  at 
what  tliey  have  done.  Then  some  part  of  the  abdi- 
cated grievance  is  recalled  from  its  exile  in  order  to 
become  a  corrective  of  the  correction.  Tlien  the 
abuse  assumes  all  the  credit  and  popularity  of  a  re- 
form. The  very  idea  of  purity  and  disinterestedness 
in  politics  falls  into  disrepute,  and  is  considered  as  a 
vision  of  hot  and  inexperienced  men  ;  and  thus  dis- 
orders become  incurable,  not  by  the  virulence  of  their 
own  quality,  but  by  the  unapt  and  violent  nature  of 
the  remedies.  A  great  part,  therefore,  of  my  idea  of 
reform  is  meant  to  operate  gradually  :  some  benefits 
will  come  at  a  nearer,  some  at  a  more  remote  period. 
We  must  no  more  make  haste  to  be  rich  by  parsi- 
mony than  by  intemperate  acquisition. 

In  my  opinion,  it  is  our  duty,  when  we  have  the  de- 
sires of  the  people  before  us,  to  pursue  them,  not  in 
the  spirit  of  literal  obedience,  which  may  militate  with 
their  very  principle,  —  much  less  to  treat  them  with  a 
peevish  and  contentious  litigation,  as  if  v/e  were  ad- 
verse parties  in  a  suit.  It  would,. Sir,  be  most  dishon- 
orable for  a  faithful  representative  of  the  Commons 
to  take  advantage  of  any  inartificial  expression  of  the 
people's  wishes,  in  order  to  frustrate  their  attainment 
of  what  they  have  an  undoubted  right  to  expect.  We 
are  under  infinite  obligations  to  our  constituents,  who 
have  raised  us  to  so  distinguished  a  trust,  and  have 
imparted  such  a  degree  of  sanctity  to  common  char- 
acters. We  ought  to  walk  before  them  with  purity, 
plainness,  and  integrity  of  heart, —  with  filial  love,  and 
not  with  slavish  fear,  which  is  always  a  low  and  trick- 
ing thing.  For  my  own  part,  in  what  I  have  medi- 
tated upon  that  sul)Jcct,  I  cannot,  indeed,  take  upon 
me  to  say  I  have  the  honor  to  follow  the  sense  of  the 


282  SPEECH    ON    THE   PLAN 

people.  The  truth  is,  I  met  it  on  the  way,  while  I  wus 
pursuing  their  interest  according  to  my  own  ideas.  I 
am  happy  beyond  expression  to  find  that  my  inten- 
tions have  so  far  coincided  with  theirs,  that  I  have 
not  had  cause  to  be  in  the  least  scrupulous  to  sign 
their  petition,  conceiving  it  to  express  my  own  opin- 
ions, as  nearly  as  general  terms  can  express  the  ob- 
ject of  particular  arrangements. 

I  am  therefore  satisfied  to  act  as  a  fair  mediator 
between  government  and  the  people,  endeavoring  to 
form  a  plan  which  should  have  both  an  early  and  a 
temperate  operation.  I  mean,  that  it  should  be  sub- 
stantial, that  it  should  be  systematic,  that  it  should 
rather  strike  at  the  first  cause  of  prodigality  and  cor- 
rupt influence  than  attempt  to  follow  them  in  all 
their  effects. 

It  was  to  fulfil  the  first  of  these  objects  (the  pro- 
posal of  something  substantial)  that  I  found  myself 
obliged,  at  the  outset,  to  reject  a  plan  proposed  by  an 
honorable  and  attentive  member  of  Parliament,*  with 
very  good  intentions  on  his  part,  about  a  year  or  two 
ago.  Sir,  the  plan  I  speak  of  was  the  tax  of  twenty- 
five  per  cent  moved  upon  places  and  pensions  during 
the  continuance  of  the  American  war.  Nothing,  Sir, 
could  have  met  my  ideas  more  than  such  a  tax,  if  it 
was  considered  as  a  practical  satire  on  that  war,  and 
as  a  penalty  upon  those  who  led  us  into  it ;  but  in 
any  other  view  it  appeared  to  me  very  liable  to  objec- 
tions. I  considered  the  scheme  as  neither  substantial, 
nor  permanent,  nor  systematical,  nor  likely  to  be  a 
corrective  of  evil  influence.  I  have  always  thought 
employments  a  very  proper  subject  of  regulation,  but 
a  very  ill-chosen  subject  for  a  tax.     An  equal  tax 

*  Thomas  Gilbert,  Esq.,  member  for  Lichfield. 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  283 

upon  property  is  reasonable ;  because  the  object  is 
of  the  same  quality  throughout.  The  species  is  the 
same  ;  it  clitTers  only  in  its  quantity.  But  a  tax  upon 
salaries  is  totally  of  a  different  nature  ;  there  can  be 
no  equality,  and  consequently  no  justice,  in  taxing 
them  by  the  hundred  in  the  gross. 

We  have,  Su-,  on  our  establishment  several  offices 
which  perform  real  service :  we  have  also  places  that 
provide  large  rewards  for  no  service  at  all.  We  have 
stations  which  are  made  for  the  public  decorum,  made 
for  preserving  tlie  grace  and  majesty  of  a  great  peo- 
ple :  we  have  likewise  expensive  formalities,  which 
tend  rather  to  the  disgrace  than  the  ornament  of  the 
state  and  the  court.  This,  Sir,  is  the  real  condition  of 
our  establishments.  To  fall  with  the  same  severity  on 
objects  so  perfectly  dissimilar  is  the  very  reverse  of  a 
reformation, — I  mean  a  reformation  framed,  as  all 
serious  things  ought  to  be,  in  number,  weight,  and 
measure.  —  Suppose,  for  instance,  that  two  men  re- 
ceive a  salary  of  8001.  a  year  each.  In  the  office 
of  one  there  is  nothing  at  all  to  be  done ;  in  the 
other,  the  occupier  is  oppressed  by  its  duties.  Strike 
off  twenty-five  per  cent  from  these  two  offices,  you 
take  from  one  man  2001.  which  in  justice  he  ought  to 
have,  and  you  give  in  effect  to  the  other  6001.  which 
he  ought  not  to  receive.  The  public  robs  the  former, 
and  the  latter  robs  the  public ;  and  this  mode  of 
mutual  robbery  is  the  only  way  in  which  the  office 
and  the  public  can  make  up  their  accounts. 

But  the  balance,  in  settling  the  account  of  this 
double  injustice,  is  much  against  the  state.  The 
result  is  sliort.  You  purchase  a  saving  of  two  hun- 
dred pounds  by  a  profusion  of  six.  Besides,  Sir, 
whilst  you  leave  a  supply  of  unsecured  money  belund, 


284  SPEECH    ON    THE   PLAN 

wholly  at  the  discretion  of  ministers,  they  make  up 
the  tax  to  such  places  as  they  wish  to  favor,  or  in  such 
new  places  as  they  may  choose  to  create.  Thus  the 
civil  list  hecomes  oppressed  with  debt ;  and  the  pub- 
lic is  obliged  to  repay,  and  to  repay  with  an  heavy 
interest,  what  it  has  taken  by  an  injudicious  tax. 
Such  has  been  the  eifect  of  the  taxes  hitherto  laid  on 
pensions  and  employments,  and  it  is  no  encourage- 
ment to  recur  again  to  the  same  expedient. 

In  effect,  such  a  scheme  is  not  calculated  to  pro- 
duce, but  to  prevent  reformation.  It  holds  out  a 
shadow  of  present  gain  to  a  greedy  and  necessitous 
public,  to  divert  their  attention  from  those  abuses 
which  in  reality  are  the  great  causes  of  their  wants. 
It  is  a  composition  to  stay  inquiry ;  it  is  a  fine  paid 
by  mismanagement  for  the  renewal  of  its  lease  ;  what 
is  worse,  it  is  a  fine  paid  by  industry  and  merit  for 
an  indemnity  to  the  idle  and  the  worthless.  But  I 
shall  say  no  more  upon  this  topic,  because  (whatever 
may  be  given  out  to  the  contrary)  I- know  that  the 
noble  lord  in  the  blue  ribbon  perfectly  agrees  with 
me  in  these  sentiments. 

After  all  that  I  have  said  on  this  subject,  I  am  so 
sensible  that  it  is  our  duty  to  try  everything  which 
may  contribute  to  the  relief  of  the  nation,  that  1  do 
not  attempt  wholly  to  reprobate  the  idea  even  of  a 
tax.  Whenever,  Sir,  the  incumbrance  of  useless  office 
(which  lies  no  less  a  dead  weight  upon  the  service  of 
the  state  than  upon  its  revenues)  shall  be  removed, 
—  when  the  remaining  offices  shall  be  classed  accord- 
ing to  the  just  proportion  of  their  rewards  and  ser- 
vices, so  as  to  admit  the  application  of  an  equal  rule 
to  their  taxation,  —  when  the  discretionary  power  over 
the  civil  list  cash  shall  be  so  regulated  that  a  minis- 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  285 

ter  shall  no  longer  have  the  means  of  repayhig  with  a 
private  what  is  taken  by  a  public  hand,  —  if,  after  all 
these  preliminary  regulations,  it  should  be  thought 
that  a  tax  on  places  is  an  object  worthy  of  the  public 
attention,  I  shall  be  very  ready  to  lend  my  hand  to  a 
reduction  of  their  emoluments. 

Having  thus.  Sir,  not  so  much  absolutely  rejected 
as  postponed  the  plan  of  a  taxation  of  office,  my  next 
business  was  to  find  something  which  might  be  really 
substantial  and  efiectual.  I  am  quite  clear,  that,  if 
we  do  not  go  to  the  very  origin  and  first  ruling  cause 
of  grievances,  we  do  nothing.  "What  does  it  signify 
to  turn  abuses  out  of  one  door,  if  we  are  to  let  them 
in  at  another  ?  "What  does  it  signify  to  promote  econ- 
omy upon  a  measure,  and  to  suffer  it  to  be  subverted 
in  the  principle  ?  Our  ministers  are  far  from  being 
wholly  to  blame  for  the  present  ill  order  which  pre- 
vails. "Whilst  institutions  directly  repugnant  to  good 
management  are  suffered  to  remain,  no  effectual  or 
lasting  reform  can  be  introduced. 

I  therefore  thought  it  necessary,  as  soon  as  I  con- 
ceived thoughts  of  submitting  to  you  some  plan  of 
reform,  to  take  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  state  of 
this  country,  —  to  make  a  sort  of  survey  of  its  juris- 
dictions, its  estates,  and  its  establishments.  Some- 
thing in  every  one  of  them  seemed  to  me  to  stand  in 
the  way  of  all  economy  in  their  administration,  and 
prevented  every  possibility  of  methodizing  the  system. 
But  being,  as  I  ought  to  be,  doubtful  of  myself,  I  was 
resolved  not  to  proceed  in  an  arbitrary  manner  in 
any  particular  which  tended  to  change  the  settled 
state  of  things,  or  in  any  degree  to  affect  the  fortune 
or  situation,  tlic  interest  or  the  importance,  of  any 
individual      By  an  arbitrary  proceeding  I  mean  one 


286  SPEECH    ON    THE    PLAN 

conducted  by  the  private  opinions,  tastes,  or  feelings 
of  the  man  who  attempts  to  regulate.  These  private 
measures  are  not  standards  of  the  exchequer,  uor 
balances  of  the  sanctuary.  General  principles  cannot 
be  debauched  or  corrupted  by  interest  or  caprice  ;  and 
by  those  principles  I  was  resolved  to  work. 

Sir,  before  I  proceed  further,  I  will  lay  these  prin- 
ciples fairly  before  you,  that  afterwards  you  may  be 
in  a  condition  to  judge  whether  every  object  of  regu- 
lation, as  I  propose  it,  comes  fairly  under  its  rule. 
This  will  exceedingly  shorten  all  discussion  between 
us,  if  we  are  perfectly  in  earnest  in  establishing  a  sys- 
tem of  good  management.  I  therefore  lay  down  to 
myself  seven  fundamental  rules  :  they  might,  indeed, 
be  reduced  to  two  or  three  simple  maxims  ;  but  they 
would  be  too  general,  and  their  application  to  the  sev- 
eral heads  of  the  business  before  us  would  not  be  so 
distinct  and  visible.     I  conceive,  then. 

First,  That  all  jurisdictions  which  furnish  more 
matter  of  expense,  more  temptation  to  oppres- 
sion, or  more  means  and  instruments  of  corrupt 
influence,  than  advantage  to  justice  or  political 
administration,  ought  to  be  abolished. 
Secondly,  That  all  public  estates  which  are  more 
subservient  to  the  purposes  of  vexing,  overaw- 
ing, and  influencing  those  who  Iwld  under  them, 
and  to  the  expense  of  perception  and  manage- 
ment, than  of  benefit  to  the  revenue,  ought,  upon 
every  principle  both  of  revenue  and  of  freedom, 
to  be^  disposed  of. 
Thirdly,  That  all  offices  which  bring  more  charge 
than  proportional  advantage  to  the  state,  that  all 
offices  which  may  be  engrafted  on  others,  uniting 
and  simplifying  their  duties,  ought,  in  the  first 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  287 

case,  to  be  taken  away,  and,  in  the  second,  to  be 
consolidated. 

Fourtlily,  That  all  such  offices  ought  to  be  abolished 
as  obstruct  the  prospect  of  the  general  superin- 
tendent of  finance,  which  destroy  his  superin- 
tendency,  which  disable  him  from  foreseeing  and 
providing  for  charges  as  they  may  occur,  from 
preventing  expense  in  its  origin,  checking  it  in 
its  progress,  or  securing  its  application  to  its 
proper  purposes.  A  minister,  under  whom  ex- 
penses can  be  made  without  his  knowledge,  can 
never  say  what  it  is  that  lie  can  spend,  or  what 
it  is  that  he  can  save. 

Fiftlily,  That  it  is  proper  to  establish  an  invariable 
order  in  all  payments,  which  will  prevent  par- 
tiality, which  will  give  preference  to  services, 
not  according  to  the  importunity  of  the  demand- 
ant, but  the  rank  and  order  of  their  utility  or 
their  justice. 

Sixthly,  That  it  is  right  to  reduce  every  establish- 
ment and  every  part  of  an  establishment  (as 
nearly  as  possible)  to  certainty,  the  life  of  all 
order  and  good  management. 

Seventhly,  That  all  subordinate  treasuries,  as  the 
nurseries  of  mismanagement,  and  as  naturally 
drawing  to  themselves  as  much  money  as  they 
can,  keeping  it  as  long  as  they  can,  and  account- 
ing for  it  as  late  as  they  can,  ought  to  be  dis- 
solved. Tbcy  have  a  tendency  to  perplex  and 
distract  the  public  accounts,  and  to  excite  a  sus- 
picion of  government  even  beyond  the  extent  of 
their  abuse. 

Under  the  authority  and  with  the  guidance  of  those 
principles  I  proceed, —  wishing  that  notlnng  in  any 


288  SPEECH   ON   THE   PLAN 

establishment  may  be  changed,  where  I  am  not  able 
to  make  a  strong,  direct,  and  solid  application  of 
those  principles,  or  of  some  one  of  them.  An  eco- 
nomical constitution  is  a  necessary  basis  for  an  eco- 
nomical administration. 

First,  with  regard  to  the  sovereign  jurisdictions,  I 
must  observe,  Sir,  that  whoever  takes  a  view  of  this 
kingdom  in  a  cursory  manner  will  imagine  that  he 
beholds  a  solid,  compacted,  uniform  system  of  mon- 
archy, in  which  all  inferior  jurisdictions  are  but  as 
rays  diverging  from  one  centre.     But  on  examining 
it  more  nearly,  you  find  much  eccentricity  and  confu- 
sion.    It  is  not  a  monarchy  in  strictness.     But,  as  in 
the  Saxon  times  this  country  was  an  heptarchy,  it  is 
now  a  strange  sort  of  pentarchy.     It  is  divided  into 
five  several  distinct  principalities,  besides  the  supreme. 
There  is,  indeed,  this  difference  from  the  Saxon  times, 
— that,  as  in  the  itinerant  exhibitions  of  the  stage, 
for  want  of  a  complete  company,  they  are  obliged  to 
throw  a  variety  of  parts  on  their  chief  performer,  so 
our  sovereign  condescends  himself  to  act  not  only  the 
principal,  but  all  the  subordinate  parts  in  the  play. 
He  condescends  to  dissipate  the  royal  character,  and 
to  trifle  with  those  light,  subordinate,  lacquered  scep- 
tres in  those  hands  that  sustain  the  ball  representing 
the  world,  or  which  wield  the  trident  that  commands 
the  ocean.     Cross  a  brook,  and  you  lose  the  King 
of  England ;     but  you  have  some  comfort  in  com- 
ing again  under  his  Majesty,  though  "  shorn  of  his 
beams,"  and  no  more  than  Prince  of  Wales.    Go  to 
the  north,  and  you  find  him  dwindled  to  a  Duke  of 
Lancaster;  turn  to  the  west  of  that  north,  and  he 
pops  upon  you  in  the  humble  character  of  Earl  of 
Chester.     Travel  a  few  miles  on,  the  Earl  of  Chester 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  289 

disappears,  and  the  king  surprises  you  again  as 
Count  Palatine  of  Lancaster.  If  you  travel  beyond 
Mount  Edgecombe,  you  find  him  once  more  in  his  in- 
cognito, and  he  is  Duke  of  Cornwall.  So  that,  quite 
fatigued  and  satiated  witli  this  dull  variety,  you  are 
infinitely  refreshed  when  you  return  to  the  spliere  of 
his  proper  splendor,  and  behold  your  amiable  sov- 
ereign in  his  true,  simple,  undisguised,  native  charac- 
ter of  Majesty. 

In  every  one  of  these  five  principalities,  duchies, 
palatinates,  there  is  a  regular  establishment  of  con- 
siderable expense  and  most  domineering  influence. 
As  his  Majesty  submits  to  appear  in  this  state  of  sub- 
ordination to  himself,  his  loyal  peers  and  faithful 
commons  attend  his  royal  transformations,  and  are 
not  so  nice  as  to  refuse  to  nibble  at  those  crumbs 
of  emoluments  which  console  their  petty  metamor- 
phoses. Thus  every  one  of  those  principalities  has 
the  apparatus  of  a  kingdom  for  the  jurisdiction  over 
a  few  private  estates,  and  the  formality  and  charge 
of  the  Exchequer  of  Great  Britain  for  collecting  the 
rents  of  a  country  squire.  Cornwall  is  the  best  of 
them ;  but  when  you  compare  the  charge  with  the 
receipt,  you  will  find  that  it  furnishes  no  exception 
to  the  general  rule.  The  Duchy  and  County  Palatine 
of  Lancaster  do  not  yield,  as  I  have  reason  to  believe, 
on  an  average  of  twenty  years,  four  thousand  pounds 
a  year  clear  to  the  crown.  As  to  Wales,  and  the  Coun- 
ty Palatine  of  Chester,  I  have  my  doubts  whether 
their  productive  exchequer  yields  any  returns  at  all. 
Yet  one  may  say,  that  this  revenue  is  more  faithfully 
applied  to  its  purposes  than  any  of  the  rest ;  as  it 
exists  for  the  sole  purpose  of  multiplying  offices  and 
extending  influence. 

VOL.  II.  19 


290  SPEECH    ON   THE    PLAN 

An  attempt  was  lately  made  to  improve  tins  branch 
of  local  influence,  and  to  transfer  it  to  the  fund  of 
general  corruption.  I  have  on  the  seat  behind  me 
the  constitution  of  Mr.  John  Probert,  a  knight-errant 
dubbed  by  the  noble  lord  in  the  blue  ribbon,  and 
sent  to  search  for  revenues  and  adventures  ipon  the 
mountains  of  Wales.  The  commission  is  remark- 
able, and  the  event  not  less  so.  The  commission 
sets  forth,  that,  "  upon  a  report  of  the  deputy-auditor  " 
(for  there  is  a  deputy-auditor)  "  of  the  Principality  of 
Wales,  it  appeared  that  his  Majesty's  land  revenues 
in  the  said  principality  are  greatly  diminished'''' ;  — 
and  "  that  upon  a  report  of  the  surveyor-general  of  his 
Majesty's  land  revenues,  upon  a  memorial  of  the  au- 
ditor of  his  Majesty's  revenues,  within  the  said  princi- 
pality, that  his  mines  and  forests  have  produced  very 
little  p>rofit  either  to  the  public  revenue  or  to  individuals  "  ; 
—  and  therefore  they  appoint  Mr.  Probert,  with  a  pen- 
sion of  three  hundred  pounds  a  year  from  the  said 
principality,  to  try  whether  he  can  make  anything 
more  of  that  very  little  which  is  stated  to  be  so  greatly 
diminished.  "  A  beggarly  account  of  empty  boxes.''^ 
And  yet,  Sir,  you  will  remark,  that  this  diminution 
from  littleness  (which  serves  only  to  prove  the  infinite 
divisibility  of  matter)  was  not  for  want  of  the  tender 
and  officious  care  (as  we  see)  of  surveyors  general 
and  surveyors  particular,  of  auditors  and  deputy 
auditors,  —  not  for  want  of  memorials,  and  remon 
strances,  and  reports,  and  commissions,  and  consti 
tutions,  and  inquisitions,  and  pensions. 

Probert,  thus  armed,  and  accoutred,  —  and  paid,— 
proceeded  on  his  adventure ;  but  he  was  no  soonei 
arrived  on  the  confines  of  Wales  than  all  Wales  was 
in  arms  to  meet  him.     That  nation  is  brave  and  fuli 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  291 

of  spirit.  Since  the  invasion  of  King  Edward,  and 
the  massacre  of  the  bards,  there  never  was  such  a 
tumult  and  alarm  and  uproar  through  the  region  of 
Prestatyn.  Snowdon  shook  to  its  base ;  Cader-Idris 
was  loosened  from  its  foundations.  The  fury  of  li 
tigious  war  blew  her  horn  on  the  mountains.  The 
rocks  poured  down  their  goatherds,  and  the  deep  cav- 
erns vomited  out  their  miners.  Everything  above 
ground  and  everything  under  ground  was  in  arms. 
In  short,  Sir,  to  alight  from  my  Welsh  Pegasus, 
and  to  come  to  level  ground,  the  Preux  Chevalier  Pro- 
bert  went  to  look  for  revenue,  like  his  masters  upon 
other  occasions,  and,  like  his  masters,  he  found  rebel- 
lion. But  we  were  grown  cautious  by  experience. 
A  civil  war  of  paper  might  end  in  a  more  serious 
war;  for  now  remonstrance  met  remonstrance,  and 
memorial  was  opposed  to  memorial.  The  wise  Brit- 
ons thought  it  more  reasonable  that  the  poor,  wasted, 
decrepit  revenue  of  the  principality  should  die  a  nat- 
ural than  a  violent  death.  In  truth.  Sir,  the  attempt 
was  no  less  an  affront  upon  the  understanding  of  that 
respectable  people  than  it  was  an  attack  on  their 
property.  They  chose  rather  that  their  ancient,  moss- 
grown  castles  should  moulder  into  decay,  under  the 
silent  touches  of  time,  and  the  slow  formality  of  an  ob- 
livious and  drowsy  exchcqiier,  than  that  they  should 
be  battered  down  all  at  once  by  the  lively  efforts  of  a 
pensioned  engineer.  As  it  is  the  fortune  of  the  noble 
lord  to  whom  the  auspices  of  this  campaign  belonged 
frequently  to  provoke  resistance,  so  it  is  his  rule  and 
nature  to  yield  to  that  resistance  in  all  cases  what- 
soever. He  was  triie  to  himself  on  this  occasion.  He 
submitted  with  spirit  to  tlic  spirited  remonstrances  of 
the  Welsh.     Mr.  Probert  gave  up  his  adventure,  and 


292  SPEECH    ON    THE   PLAN 

keeps  his  pension  ;  and  so  ends  "  the  famous  history 
of  the  revenue  adventures  of  the  bold  Baron  North 
and  the  good  Knight  Probert  upon  the  mountains 
of  Yenodotia." 

In  such  a  state  is  tlie  exchequer  of  Wales  at  pres- 
ent, that,  upon  the  report  of  the  Treasury  itself,  its  lit- 
tle revenue  is  greatly  diminished  ;  and  we  see,  by  the 
whole  of  this  strange  transaction,  that  an  attempt 
to  imj^rove  it  produces  resistance,  the  resistance  pro- 
duces submission,  and  the  whole  ends  in  pension.* 

It  is  nearly  the  •  same  with  the  revenues  of  the 
Ducliy  of  Lancaster.  To  do  nothing  with  them  is 
extinction  ;  to  improve  them  is  oppression.  Indeed, 
the  \^hole  of  the  estates  which  support  these  minor 
principalities  is  made  up,  not  of  revenues,  and  rents, 
and  profitable  fines,  but  of  claims,  of  pretensions,  of 
vexations,  of  litigations.  They  are  exchequers  of  un- 
frequent  receipt  and  constant  charge :  a  system  of 
finances  not  fit  for  an  economist  who  would  be  rich, 
not  fit  for  a  prince  who  would  govern  his  subjects 
with  equity  and  justice. 

It  is  not  only  between  prince  and  subject  that 
these  mock  jurisdictions  and  mimic  revenues  pro- 
duce great  mischief.  They  excite  among  the  people  a 
spirit  of  informing  and  delating,  a  spirit  of  supplant- 
ing and  undermining  one  another :  so  that  many,  in 
such  circumstances,  conceive  it  advantageous  to  them 
rather  to  continue  subject  to  vexation  tliemselves 
than  to  give  up  the  means  and  chance  of  vexing  oth- 

*  Here  Lord  North  shook  his  head,  and  told  those  who  sat  near 
him  that  Mr.  Probert's  pension  was  to  depend  on  his  success.  It 
may  be  so.  Mr.  Probert's  pension  was,  however,  no  essential  part 
of  the  question ;  nor  did  Mr.  B.  care  whether  he  still  possessed  it  or 
not.  His  point  was,  to  show  the  ridicule  of  attempting^  an  improve 
ment  of  the  "Welsh  revenue  under  its  present  establishment. 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  293 

ers.  It  is  exceedingly  common  for  men  to  contract 
their  love  to  their  country  into  an  attachment  to  its 
petty  subdivisions  ;  and  they  sometimes  even  cling  to 
their  provincial  abuses,  as  if  they  were  franchises  and 
local  privileges.  Accordingly,  in  places  where  there 
is  much  of  this  kind  of  estate,  persons  will  be  always 
found  who  would  rather  trust  to  their  talents  in 
recommending  themselves  to  power  for  the  renewal 
of  their  interests,  than  to  incumber  their  purses, 
though  never  so  lightly,  in  order  to  transmit  inde- 
pendence to  their  posterity.  It  is  a  great  mistake, 
that  the  desire  of  securing  property  is  universal 
among  mankind.  Gaming  is  a  principle  inherent  in 
human  nature.  It  belongs  to  us  all.  I  would  there- 
fore break  those  tables  ;  I  would  furnish  no  evil  occu- 
pation for  that  spirit.  I  would  make  every  man  look 
everywhere,  except  to  the  intrigue  of  a  court,  for  the 
improvement  of  his  circumstances  or  the  security  of 
his  fortune.  I  have  in  my  eye  a  very  strong  case  in 
the  Duchy  of  Lancaster  (which  lately  occupied  West- 
minster Hall  and  the  House  of  Lords)  as  my  voucher 
for  many  of  these  reflections.* 

For  what  plausible  reason  are  these  principalities 
suffered  to  exist  ?  When  a  government  is  rendered 
complex,  (which  in  itself  is  no  desirable  thing,)  it 
ought  to  be  for  some  political  end  which  cannot  be 
answered  otherwise.  Subdivisions  in  government 
are  only  admissible  in  favor  of  the  dignity  of  inferior 
princes  and  high  nobility,  or  for  the  support  of  an 
aristocratic  confederacy  under  some  head,  or  for  the 
conservation  of  the  franchises  of  the  people  in  some 
privileged   province.     For  the  two  foj-mer  of  these 

*  Case  of  Richard  Lee,  Esq.,  appellant,  against  George  Venables 
Lord  Vernon,  respondent,  in  the  year  1776. 


294  SPEECH    ON    THE    PLAN 

ends,  siicli  are  the  s^lbdivisiolls  in  favor  of  the  elec- 
toral and  other  princes  in  the  Empire  ;  for  the  latter 
of  these  purposes  are  the  jurisdictions  of  the  Imperial 
cities  and  the  Hanse  towns.  For  the  latter  of  these 
ends  are  also  the  countries  of  the  States  (^Pays 
d'Etats)  and  certain  cities  and  orders  in  France. 
These  are  all  regulations  with  an  object,  and  some 
of  them  with  a  very  good  object.  But  how  are  the 
principles  of  any  of  these  subdivisions  applicable  in 
the  case  before  us  ? 

Do  they  answer  any  purpose  to  the  king?  The 
Principality  of  Wales  was  given  by  patent  to  Edward 
the  Black  Prince  on  the  ground  on  which  it  has 
since  stood.  Lord  Coke  sagaciously  observes  upon 
it,  "  That  in  the  charter  of  creating  the  Black  Prince 
Edward  Prince  of  Wales  there  is  a  great  mystery :  for 
less  than  an  estate  of  inheritance  so  great  a  prince 
could  not  have,  and  an  absolute  estate  of  inheritance  in 
so  great  a  principality  as  Wales  (this  principality 
being  so  dear  to  him)  he  sJiould  not  have  ;  and  there- 
fore it  was  made  sibi  et  heredibus  suis  regibus  Anglice, 
that  by  his  decease,  or  attaining  to  the  crown,  it 
might  be  extinguished  in  the  crown." 

For  the  sake  of  tliis  foolish  mystery,  of  what  a  great 
prince  could  not  have  less  and  should  not  have  so  much, 
of  a  principality  wliich  was  too  dear  to  be  given  and 
too  great  to  be  kept,  —  and  for  no  other  cause  that 
ever  I  could  find,  —  this  form  and  shadow  of  a  princi- 
pality, without  any  substance,  has  been  maintained. 
That  you  may  judge  in  this  instance  (and  it  serves 
for  the  rest)  of  the  difference  between  a  great  and  a 
little  economy,  you  will  please  to  recollect,  Sir,  that 
Wales  may  be  about  the  tenth  part  of  England  in 
size  and  population,  and  certainly  not  a  hundredth 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  295 

part  in  opulence.  Twelve  judges  perform  the  whole 
of  the  business,  both  of  the  stationary  and  the  itiner- 
ant justice  of  this  kingdom ;  but  for  Wales  there  are 
eiglit  judges.  There  is  in  "Wales  an  exchequer,  as 
well  as  in  all  the  duchies,  according  to  the  very  best 
and  most  authentic  absurdity  of  form.  There  are  in 
all  of  them  a  hundred  more  difldcult  trifles  and  labo- 
rious fooleries,  which  serve  no  other  purpose  than  to 
keep  alive  corrupt  hope  and  servile  dependence. 

Tliese  principalities  are  so  far  from  contributing  to 
the  ease  of  the  king,  to  his  wealth,  or  his  dignity, 
that  they  render  both  his  supreme  and  his  subordi- 
nate authority  perfectly  ridiculous.  It  was  but  the 
other  day,  that  that  pert,  factious  fellow,  the  Duke  of 
Lancaster,  presumed  to  fly  in  the  face  of  his  liege 
lord,  our  gracious  sovereign,  and,  associating  with  a 
parcel  of  lawyers  as  factious  as  himself,  to  the  de- 
struction of  all  law  and  order,  and  in  committees  lead- 
ing directly  to  rebellion,  presumed  to  go  to  law  with 
the  king.  The  object  is  neither  your  business  nor 
mine.  Which  of  the  parties  got  the  better  I  really 
forget.  I  think  it  was  (as  it  ought  to  be)  the  king. 
The  material  point  is,  that  the  suit  cost  about  fifteen 
thousand  pounds.  But  as  the  Duke  of  Lancaster  is 
but  a  sort  of  Buhe  Humphrey ,  and  not  worth  a  groat, 
our  sovereign  was  obliged  to  pay  the  costs  of  both. 
Indeed,  this  art  of  converting  a  great  monarch  into  a 
little  prince,  this  royal  masquerading,  is  a  very  dan- 
gerous and  expensive  amusement,  and  one  of  the 
king's  menus  j-j/a^'sirs,  which  ought  to  be  reformed. 
This  duchy,  which  is  not  worth  four  thousand  pounds 
a  year  at  best  to  revenue,  is  wortli  forty  or  fifty  thou- 
sand to  influence. 

The  Duchy  of  Lancaster  and  the  County  Palatine 


296  SPEECH    ON   THE   PLAN 

of  Lancaster  answered,  I  admit,  some  purpose  in  tlieir 
original  creation.  They  tended  to  make  a  subject 
imitate  a  prince.  When  Henry  the  Fourth  from 
that  stair  ascended  the  throne,  high-minded  as  he 
was,  lie  was  not  willing  to  kick  away  the  ladder.  To 
prevent  that  principality  from  being  extinguished  in 
the  crown,  he  severed  it  by  act  of  Parliament.  He 
had  a  motive,  such  as  it  was :  he  thought  his  title  to 
the  crown  unsound,  and  his  possession  insecure.  He 
therefore  managed  a  retreat  in  his  duchy,  which 
Lord  Coke  calls  (I  do  not  know  why)  "j»ar  multis 
regnis."  He  flattered  himself  that  it  was  practicable 
to  make  a  projecting  point  half  way  down,  to  break  his 
fall  from  the  precipice  of  royalty ;  as  if  it  were  possi- 
ble for  one  who  had  lost  a  kingddm  to  keep  anything 
else.  However,  it  is  evident  that  he  thought  so. 
When  Henry  the  Fifth  united,  by  act  of  Parliament, 
the  estates  of  his  mother  to  the  duchy,  he  had  the 
same  predilection  with  his  father  to  the  root  of  his 
family  honors,  and  the  same  policy  in  enlarging  the 
sphere  of  a  possible  retreat  from  the  slippery  royal- 
ty of  the  two  great  crowns  he  held.  All  this  was 
changed  by  Edward  the  Fourth.  He  had  no  such 
family  partialities,  and  his  policy  was  the  reverse  of 
that  of  Henry  the  Fourth  and  Henry  the  Fifth.  He 
accordingly  again  united  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster  to 
the  crown.  But  when  Henry  the  Seventh,  who  chose 
to  consider  himself  as  of  the  House  of  Lancaster, 
came  to  the  throne,  he  brought  with  him  the  old  pre- 
tensions and  the  old  politics  of  that  house.  A  new 
act  of  Parliament,  a  second  time,  dissevered  the 
Duchy  of  Lancaster  from  the  crown  ;  and  in  that  line 
things  continued  until  the  subversion  of , the  monar- 
chy, when  principalities  and  powers  fell  along  with 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  EEFORM.  297 

the  throne.  The  Duchy  of  Lancaster  must  have  been 
extinguished,  if  Cromwell,  who  began  to  form  ideas 
of  aggrandizing*  his  house  and  raising  the  several 
branches  of  it,  had  not  caused  the  duchy  to  be  again 
separated  from  the  commonwealth,  by  an  act  of  the 
Parliament  of  those  times. 

What  partiality,  what  objects  of  the  politics  of  the 
House  of  Lancaster,  or  of  Cromwell,  has  his  present 
Majesty,  or  his  Majesty's  family  ?  What  power  have 
they  witiiin  any  of  these  principalities,  which  they  have 
not  within  their  kingdom  ?  In  what  manner  is  the 
dignity  of  the  nobility  concerned  in  these  principali- 
ties ?  What  rights  have  the  subject  there,  which  they 
have  not  at  least  equally  in  every  other  part  of  the 
nation  ?  These  distinctions  exist  for  no  good  end  to 
the  king,  to  the  nobility,  or  to  the  people.  They 
ought  not  to  exist  at  all.  If  the  crown  (contrary  to 
its  nature,  but  most  conformably  to  the  whole  tenor 
of  the  advice  that  has  been  lately  given)  should  so  far 
forget  its  dignity  as  to  contend  that  these  jurisdic- 
tions and  revenues  are  estates  of  private  property,  I 
am  rather  for  acting  as  if  that  groundless  claim  were 
of  some  weight  than  for  giving  up  that  essential  part 
of  the  reform.  I  would  value  the  clear  income,  and 
give  a  clear  annuity  to  the  crown,  taken  on  the  me- 
dium produce  for  twenty  years. 

If  the  crown  has  any  favorite  name  or  title,  if  the 
subject  has  any  matter  of  local  accommodation  with- 
in any  of  these  jurisdictions,  it  is  meant  to  preserve 
them,  —  and  to  improve  them,  if  any  improvement 
can  be  SM^gested.  As  to  the  crown  reversions  or  titles 
upon  the  property  of  the  people  there,  it  is  proposed 
to  convert  them  from  a  snare  to  their  independence 
into  a  relief  from  their  burdens.     I  propose,  there- 


298  SPEECH    ON   THE   PLAN 

fore,  to  unite  all  the  five  principalities  to  the  crown, 
and  to  its  ordinary  jurisdiction,  —  to  abolish  all  those 
offices  that  produce  an  useless  and  chargeable  sepa- 
ration from  the  body  of  the  people,  —  to  compensate 
those  who  do  not  hold  their  offices  (if  any  such  there 
are)  at  the  pleasure  of  the  crown,  —  to  extinguish 
vexatious  titles  by  an  act  of  short  limitation,  —  to  sell 
those  unprofitable  estates  which  support  useless  juris- 
dictions, —  and  to  turn  the  tenant-right  into  a  fee,  on 
such  moderate  terms  as  will  be  better  for  the  state 
than  its  present  right,  and  which  it  is  impossible  for 
any  rational  tenant  to  refuse. 

As  to  the  duchies,  their  judicial  economy  may 
be  provided  for  without  charge.  They  have  only  to 
fall  of  course  into  the  common  county  administra- 
tion. A  commission  more  or  less,  made  or  omitted, 
settles  the  matter  fully.  As  to  Wales,  it  has  been 
proposed  to  add  a  judge  to  the  several  courts  of 
Westminster  Hall ;  and  it  has  been  considered  as  an 
improvement  in  itself.  For  my  part,  I  cannot  pre- 
tend to  speak  upon  it  with  clearness  or  with  decis- 
ion ;  but  certainly  this  arrangement  would  be  more 
than  sufficient  for  Wales.  My  original  thought  was, 
to  suppress  five  of  the  eight  judges ;  and  to  leave  the 
chief-justice  of  Chester,  with  the  two  senior  judges ; 
and,  to  facilitate  the  business,  to  throw  the  twelve 
counties  into  six  districts,  holding  the  sessions  alter- 
nately in  the  counties  of  which  each  district  shall  be 
composed.  But  on  this  I  shall  be  more  clear,  when 
I  come  to  the  particular  bill. 

Sir,  the  House  will  now  see,  whether,  in  praying 
for  judgment  against  the  minor  principalities,  I  do 
not  act  in  conformity  to  the  laws  tliat  I  had  laid  to 
myself:  of  getting  rid  of  every  jurisdiction  more  sub- 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  KEFORM.  299 

servient  to  oppression  and  expense  than  to  any  end 
of  justice  or  lionest  policy  ;  of  abolishing  offices  more 
expensive  than  useful ;  of  combining  duties  improp- 
erly separated;  of  changing  revenues  more  vexatious 
than  productive  into  ready  money ;  of  suppressing 
offices  which  stand  in  the  way  of  economy ;  and  of 
cutting  off  lurking  subordinate  treasuries.  Dispute 
the  rules,  controvert  the  application,  or  give  your 
hands  to  this  salutary  measure. 

Most  of  the  same  rules  will  be  found  applicable  to 
my  second  object,  —  the  landed  estate  of  the  croivn.  A 
landed  estate  is  certainly  the  very  worst  which  the 
crown  can  possess.  All  minute  and  dispersed  pos- 
sessions, possessions  that  are  often  of  indeterminate 
value,  and  which  require  a  continued  personal  attend- 
ance, are  of  a  nature  more  proper  for  private  manage- 
ment than  public  administration.  They  are  fitter  for 
the  care  of  a  frugal  land-steward  than  of  an  office  in 
the  state.  Whatever  they  may  possibly  have  been  in 
other  times  or  in  other  countries,  they  are  not  of 
magnitude  enough  with  us  to  occupy  a  public  depart- 
ment, nor  to  provide  for  a  public  object.  They  are 
already  given  up  to  Parliament,  and  the  gift  is  not  of 
great  value.  Common  prudence  dictates,  even  in  the 
management  of  private  affairs,  that  all  dispersed  and 
chargeable  estates  should  be  sacrificed  to  the  relief  of 
estates  more  compact  and  better  circumstanced. 

If  it  be  objected,  that  these  lands  at  present  would 
sell  at  a  low  market,  this  is  answered  by  showing 
that  money  is  at  a  high  price.  The  one  balances  the 
other.  Lands  sell  at  the  current  rate  ;  and  nothing- 
can  sell  for  more.  But  be  the  price  what  it  may,  a 
great  object  is  always  answered,  whenever  any  prop- 
erty is  transferred  from  hands  tliat  are  not  fit  for  that 


300  SPEECH    ON   THE    PLAN 

property  to  those  that  are.  The  buyer  and  seller 
must  mutually  profit  by  such  a  bargain  ;  and,  what 
rarely  happens  in  matters  of  revenue,  the  relief  of 
the  subject  will  go  hand  in  hand  with  the  profit  of 
the  Exchequer. 

As  to  the  forest  lands,  in  which  the  crown  has 
(where  they  are  not  granted  or  prescriptively  held) 
the  domi7iio7i  of  the  soil,  and  the  vert  and  venison, 
that  is  to  say,  the  timber  and  the  game,  and  in  which 
the  people  have  a  variety  of  rights,  in  common  of 
herbage,  and  other  commons,  according  to  the  usage 
of  the  several  forests, —  I  propose  to  have  those 
rights  of  the  crown  valued  as  manorial  rights  are 
valued  on  an  inclosure,  and  a  defined  portion  of 
land  to  be  given  for  them,  which  land  is  to  be  sold 
for  the  public  benefit. 

As  to  the  timber,  I  propose  a  survey  of  the  whole. 
What  is  useless  for  the  naval  purposes  of  the  king- 
dom I  would  condemn  and  dispose  of  for  the  secu- 
rity of  what  may  be  useful,  and  to  inclose  such 
other  parts  as  may  be  most  fit  to  furnish  a  perpetual 
supply,  —  wholly  extinguishing,  for  a  very  obvious 
reason,  all  right  of  venison  in  those  parts. 

The  forest  riglits  which  extend  over  the  lands  and 
possessions  of  others,  being  of  no  profit  to  the  crown, 
and  a  grievance,  as  far  as  it  goes,  to  the  subject, — 
these  I  propose  to  extinguish  without  cliarge  to  the 
proprietors.  The  several  commons  are  to  be  allotted 
and  compensated  for,  upon  ideas  which  I  shall  here- 
after explain.  They  are  nearly  the  same  with  the 
principles  upon  which  you  have  acted  in  private  in- 
closures.  I  shall  never  quit  precedents,  where  I  find 
them  applicable.  For  those  regulations  and  compen- 
sations, and  for  every  other  part  of  the  detail,  you 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  801 

will  be  so  indulgent  as  to  give  me  credit  for  the 
present. 

The  revenue  to  be  obtained  from  the  sale  of  the 
forest  lands  and  rights  will  not  be  so  considerable,  I 
believe,  as  many  people  have  imagined ;  and  I  con- 
ceive it  would  be  unwise  to  screw  it  up  to  the  utmost, 
or  even  to  suffer  bidders  to  enhance,  according  to 
their  eagerness,  the  purchase  of  objects  wherein  the 
expense  of  that  purchase  may  weaken,  the  capital  to 
be  employed  in  their  cultivation.  This,  I  am  well 
aware,  might  give  room  for  partiality  in  the  disposal. 
In  my  opinion  it  would  be  the  lesser  evil  of  the  two. 
But  I  really  conceive  that  a  rule  of  fair  preference 
might  be  established,  which  would  take  away  all  sort 
of  unjust  and  corrupt  partiality.  The  principal  rev- 
enue which  I  propose  to  draw  from  these  uncultivated 
wastes  is  to  spring  from  the  improvement  and  popula- 
tion of  the  kingdom,  —  which  never  can  happen  with- 
out producing  an  improvement  more  advantageous 
to  the  revenues  of  the  crown  than  the  rents  of  the 
best  landed  estate  which  it  can  hold.  I  believe,  Sir, 
it  will  hardly  be  necessary  for  me  to  add,  that  in  this 
sale  I  naturally  except  all  the  houses,  gardens,  and 
parks  belonging  to  the  crown,  and  such  one  forest  as 
shall  be  chosen  by  his  Majesty  as  best  accommodated 
to  his  pleasures. 

By  means  of  this  part  of  the  reform  will  fall  the 
expensive  office  of  surveyor-general,  with  all  the  influ- 
ence that  attends  it.  By  this  will  fall  tivo  chief -justices 
in  Eyre,  with  all  their  train  of  dependants.  You  need 
be  under  no  apprehension,  Sh',  tliat  your  office  is  to  be 
touched  in  its  emoluments.  They  are  yours  by  law; 
and  thoy  are  but  a  moderate  part  of  the  compensa- 
tion which  is  given  to  you  for  the  ability  with  which 


302  SPEECH    ON    THE    PLAN 

you  execute  an  office  of  quite  another  sort  of  impor- 
tance :  it  is  far  from  overpaying  your  diligence,  or 
more  than  sufficient  for  sustaining  the  high  rank  you 
stand  in  as  the  first  gentleman  of  England.  As  to 
the  duties  of  your  chief-justiceship,  they  are  very  dif- 
ferent from  those  for  which  you  have  received  the 
office.  Your  dignity  is  too  high  for  a  jurisdiction 
over  wild  beasts,  and  your  learning  and  talents  too 
valuable  to  be  wasted  as  chief-justice  of  a  desert.  I 
cannot  reconcile  it  to  myself,  that  you,  Sir,  should  be 
stuck  up  as  a  useless  piece  of  antiquity. 

I  have  now  disposed  of  the  unprofitable  landed 
estates  of  the  crown,  and  thrown  them  into  the  mass 
of  private  property  ;  by  which  they  will  come,  through 
the  course  of  circulation,  and  through  the  political 
secretions  of  the  state,  into  our  better  understood  and 
better  ordered  revenues. 

I  come  next  to  the  great  supreme  body  of  the  civil 
government  itself.  I  approach  it  with  that  awe  and 
reverence  with  which  a  young  physician  approaches 
to  the  cure  of  the  disorders  of  his  parent.  Disorders, 
Sir,  and  infirmities,  there  are,  —  such  disorders,  that 
all  attempts  towards  method,  prudence,  and  frugality 
will  be  perfectly  vain,  whilst  a  system  of  confusion  re- 
mains, which  is  not  only  alien,  but  adverse  to  all  econ- 
omy ;  a  system  which  is  not  only  prodigal  in  its  very 
essence,  but  causes  everything  else  which  belongs  to  it 
to  be  prodigally  conducted. 

It  is  impossible.  Sir,  for  any  person  to  be  an  econo- 
mist, where  no  order  in  payments  is  estal)lishcd  ;  it  is 
impossible  for  a  man  to  bo  an  economist,  who  is  not 
able  to  take  a  comparative  view  of  his  means  and  of 
his  expenses  for  the  year  which  lies  before  him  ;  it 
is  impossible  for  a  man  to  be  an  economist,  under 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  303 

whom  various  officers  in  their  several  departments 
may  spend  —  even  just  what  they  please,  —  and  often 
with  an  emulation  of  expense,  as  contributing  to  the 
importance,  if  not  profit,  of  their  several  departments. 
Thus  much  is  certain  :  that  neither  the  present  nor 
any  other  Firt^t  Lord  of  the  Treasury  has  been  ever  able 
to  take  a  survey,  or  to  make  even  a  tolerable  guess, 
of  the  expenses  of  government  for  any  one  year,  so 
as  to  enable  him  with  the  least  degree  of  certainty,  or 
even  probability,  to  bring  his  affairs  within  compass. 
"Whatever  scheme  may  be  formed  upon  them  must 
be  made  on  a  calculation  of  chances.  As  things  are 
circumstanced,  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  cannot 
make  an  estimate.  I  am  sure  I  serve  the  king,  and  I 
am  sure  I  assist  administration,  by  putting  economy 
at  least  in  their  power.  We  must  class  services  ;  we 
must  (as  far  as  their  nature  admits)  appropriate 
funds ;  or  everything,  however  reformed,  will  fall 
again  into  the  old  confusion. 

Coming  upon  this  ground  of  the  civil  list,  the  first 
thing  in  dignity  and  charge  that  attracts  our  notice 
is  the  royal  household.  This  establishment,  in  my  opin- 
ion, is  exceedingly  abusive  in  its  constitution.  It  is 
formed  upon  manners  and  customs  that  have  long 
since  expired.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  formed,  in 
many  respects,  upon  feudal  princijjles.  In  the  feudal 
times,  it  was  not  uncommon,  even  among  subjects, 
.01-  the  lowest  offices  to  be  held  by  considerable  per- 
sons,—  persons  as  unfit  by  their  incapacity  as  improper 
from  their  rank  to  occupy  such  employments.  They 
were  held  by  patent,  sometimes  for  life,  and  some- 
times by  inheritance.  If  my  memory  docs  not  deceive 
me,  a  person  of  no  slight  consideration  held  the  office 
of  patent  hereditary  cook  to  an  Earl  of  Warwick: 


304  SPEECH    ON    THE    PLAN 

the  Earl  of  Warwick's  soups,  I  fear,  were  not  the 
better  for  the  dignity  of  his  Idtchen.  I  think  it  was 
an  Earl  of  Gloucester  who  officiated  as  steward  of 
the  household  to  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury.  In- 
stances of  the  same  kind  may  in.  some  degree  be 
found  in  the  Northumberland  house-book,  and  other 
family  records.  There  was  some  reason  in  ancient 
necessities  for  these  ancient  customs.  Protection  was 
wanted  ;  and  the  domestic  tie,  though  not  the  high- 
est, was  the  closest. 

The  king's  household  has  not  only  several  strong 
traces  of  this  feudality^  but  it  is  formed  also  upon  the 
principles  of  a  body  corporate :  it  has  its  own  magis- 
trates, courts,  and  by-laws.  This  might  be  necessary 
in  the  ancient  times,  in  order  to  have  a  government 
within  itself,  capable  of  regulating  the  vast  and  often 
unruly  multitude  which  composed  and  attended  it. 
This  was  the  origin  of  the  ancient  court  called  the 
Crreen  Cloth,  —  composed  of  the  marshal,  treasurer, 
and  other  great  officers  of  the  household,  with  certain 
clerks.  The  rich  subjects  of  the  kingdom,  who  had 
formerly  the  same  establishments,  (only  on  a  reduced 
scale,)  have  since  altered  their  economy,  and  turned 
the  course  of  their  expense  from  the  maintenance  of 
vast  establishments  within  their  walls  to  the  employ- 
ment of  a  great  variety  of  independent  trades  abroad. 
Their  influence  is  lessened  ;  but  a  mode  of  accommo- 
dation and  a  style  of  splendor  suited  to  the  manners 
of  the  times  has  been  increased.  Royalty  itself  has 
insensibly  followed,  and  the  royal  household  has  been 
carried  away  by  the  resistless  tide  of  manners,  but 
with  this  very  material  diffi3rence  :  private  men  have 
got  rid  of  the  establishments  along  with  the  reasons 
of  them ;  whereas  the  royal   household   has  lost  all 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  305 

that  was  stately  and  venerable  in  the  antique  man- 
ners, without  retrenching  anything  of  the  cumbrous 
charge  of  a  Gothic  establisliment.  It  is  shrunk  into 
the  polished  littleness  of  modern  elegance  and  per- 
sonal accommodation  ;  it  has  evaporated  from  the 
gross  concrete  into  an  essence  and  rectified  spirit  of 
expense,  where  you  have  tuns  of  ancient  pomp  in  a 
vial  of  modern  luxury. 

But  when  the  reason  of  old  establishments  is  gone, 
it  is  absurd  to  preserve  nothing  but  the  burden  of 
them.  This  is  superstitiously  to  embalm  a  carcass 
not  worth  an  ounce  of  the  gums  that  are  used  to  pre- 
serve it.  It  is  to  burn  precious  oils  in  the  tomb  ;  it 
is  to  offer  meat  and  drink  to  the  dead :  not  so  much 
an  honor  to  the  deceased  as  a  disgrace  to  the  survi- 
vors. Our  palaces  are  vast  inhospitable  halls.  Tliere 
the  bleak  winds,  there  "  Boreas,  and  Eurus,  and  Gau- 
ms, and  Aa'gestes  loud,"  howling  through  the  vacant 
lobbies,  and  clattering  the  doors  of  deserted  guard- 
rooms, appall  the  imagination,  and  conjure  up  the 
grim  spectres  of  departed  tyrants,  —  the  Saxon,  the 
Norman,  and  the  Dane,  —  the  stern  Edwards  and 
fierce  Henrys,  —  who  stalk  from  desolation  to  desola- 
tion, through  the  dreary  vacuity  and  melancholy  suc- 
cession of  chill  and  comfortless  chambers.  When  this 
tumult  subsides,  a  dead  and  still  more  frightful  si- 
lence would  reign  in  this  desert,  if  every  now  and 
then  the  tacking  of  hammers  did  not  announce  that 
tliose  constant  attendants  upon  all  courts  in  all  ages, 
joljs,  were  still  alive,  —  for  whose  sake  alone  it  is  that 
any  trace  of  ancient  grandeur  is  suffered  to  remain. 
These  palaces  are  a  true  emblem  of  some  govern- 
ments :  the  inhabitants  are  decayed,  but  the  gover- 
nors and  magistrates  still  flourish.     They  put  me  in 

VOL.   II.  20 


806  SPEECH    ON    THE    PLAN 

mind  of  Old  Sanim,  where  the  representatives,  more 
in  number  than  the  constituents,  only  serve  to  inform 
us  that  this  was  once  a  place  of  trade,  and  sounding 
with  "  the  busy  hum  of  men,"  though  now  you  can 
only  trace  the  streets  by  the  color  of  the  corn,  and 
its  sole  manufacture  is  in  members  of  Parliament. 

These  old  establishments  were  formed  also  on  a 
third  principle,  still  more  adverse  to  the  living  econ- 
omy of  the  age.  They  were  formed.  Sir,  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  'purveyance  and  receipt  in  hind.  In  former 
days,  when  the  household  was  vast,  and  the  supply 
scanty  and  precarious,  the  royal  purveyors,  sallying 
forth  from  under  the  Gothic  portcullis  to  purcliase 
provision  with  power  and  prerogative  instead  of  mon- 
ey, brought  home  the  plunder  of  an  hundred  markets, 
and  all  that  could  be  seized  from  a  flying  and  hiding 
country,  and  deposited  their  spoil  in  an  hundred  cav- 
erns, with  each  its  keeper.  There,  every  commodity, 
received  in  its  rawest  condition,  went  through  all  the 
process  which  fitted  it  for  use.  This  inconvenient  re- 
ceipt produced  an  economy  suited  only  to  itself.  It 
multiplied  offices  beyond  all  measure,  —  buttery,  pan- 
try, and  all  that  rabble  of  places,  which,  though  prof- 
itable to  the  holders,  and  expensive  to  the  state,  are 
almost  too  mean  to  mention. 

All  this  might  bo,  and  I  believe  was,  necessary  at 
first ;  for  it  is  remarkable,  that  purveyance^  after  its 
regulation  had  been  the  subject  of  a  long  line  of  stat- 
utes, (not  fewer,  I  think,  than  twenty-six,)  was  wholly 
taken  away  by  the  12th  of  Charles  the  Second ;  yet 
in  the  next  year  of  the  same  reign  it  was  found  ne- 
cessary to  revive  it  by  a  special  act  of  Parliament,  for 
the  sake  of  the  king's  journeys.  Tliis,  Sir,  is  curious, 
and  what  would  hardly  be  expected  in  so  reduced  a 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  307 

court  as  that  of  Charles  the  Second  and  in  so  improved 
a  country  as  England  might  then  be  thought.  But  so 
it  was.  In  our  time,  one  well-filled  and  well-covered 
stage-coach  requires  more  accommodation  than  a  roy- 
al progress,  and  every  district,  at  an  hour's  warning, 
can  supply  an  army. 

I  do  not  say,  Sir,  that  all  these  establishments, 
whose  principle  is  gone,  have  been  systematically 
kept  up  for  influence  solely :  neglect  had  its  share. 
But  this  I  am  sure  of :  that  a  consideration  of  influ- 
ence has  hindered  any  one  from  attempting  to  pull 
them  down.  For  the  purposes  of  influence,  and 
for  those  purposes  only,  are  retained  half  at  least  of 
the  household  establishments.  No  revenue,  no,  not 
a  royal  revenue,  can  exist  under  the  accumulated 
charge  of  ancient  establishment,  modern  luxury,  and 
Parliamentary  political  corruption. 

If,  therefore,  we  aim  at  regulating  this  household, 
the  question  will  be,  whether  we  ought  to  economize 
by  detail  or  by  principle.  The  example  we  have  had 
of  the  success  of  an  attempt  to  economize  by  detail, 
and  under  establishments  adverse  to  the  attempt, 
may  tend  to  decide  this  question. 

At  the  beginning  of  his  Majesty's  ^eign,  Lord  Tal- 
bot came  to  the  administration  of  a  great  department 
in  the  household.  I  believe  no  man  ever  entered  into 
his  Majesty's  service,  or  into  the  service  of  any  prince, 
with  a  more  clear  integrity,  or  with  more  zeal  and 
affection  for  the  interest  of  his  master,  and,  I  must 
add,  with  abilities  for  a  still  higher  service.  Econo- 
my was  then  announced  as  a  maxim  of  the  reign. 
This  noble  lord,  therefore,  made  several  attempts  to- 
wards a  reform.  In  the  year  1777,  when  tlie  king's 
civil  list  debts  came  last  to  be  paid,  he  explained  very 


308  SPEECH    ON    THE   PLAN 

fully  the  success  of  his  undertaking.  He  told  tho 
House  of  Lords  that  he  had  attempted  to  reduce  the 
charges  of  the  king's  tables  and  his  kitchen.  The 
thing,  Sir,  was  not  below  him.  He  knew  that  there 
is  nothing  interesting  in  the  concerns  of  men  whom 
we  love  and  honor,  that  is  beneath  our  attention. 
"  Love,"  says  one  of  our  old  poets,  "  esteems  no  office 
mean," — and  with  still  more  spirit,  "  Entire  affection 
scorneth  nicer  hands."  Frugality,  Sir,  is  founded 
on  the  principle,  that  all  riches  have  limits.  A  royal 
household,  grown  enormous,  even  in  the  meanest 
departments,  may  weaken  and  perhaps  destroy  all 
energy  in  the  highest  offices  of  the  state.  The  gorg- 
ing a  royal  kitchen  may  stint  and  famish  the  negotia- 
tions of  a  kingdom.  Therefore  the  object  was  worthy 
of  his,  was  worthy  of  any  man's  attention. 

Li  consequence  of  this  noble  lord's  resolution,  (as 
he  told  the  other  House,)  he  reduced  several  tables, 
and  put  the  persons  entitled  to  them  upon  board 
wages,  much  to  their  own  satisfaction.  But,  unlucki- 
ly, subsequent  duties  requiring  constant  attendance, 
it  was  not  possible  to  prevent  their  being  fed  where 
they  were  employed :  and  thus  this  first  step  towards 
economy  doubled  the  expense. 

There  was  another  disaster  far  more  doleful  than 
this.  I  shall  state  it,  as  the  cause  of  that  misfortune 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  almost  all  our  prodigality. 
Lord  Talbot  attempted  to  reform  the  kitchen ;  but 
such,  as  he  well  observed,  is  the  consequence  of  hav- 
ing duty  done  by  one  person  whilst  another  enjoys 
the  emoluments,  that  he  found  himself  frustrated  in 
all  his  designs.  On  that  rock  his  whole  adventure 
split,  his  whole  scheme  of  economy  was  dashed  to 
pieces.     His  department  became  more  expensive  than 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  309 

ever;  the  civil  list  debt  accumulated.  Why?  It 
■was  truly  from  a  cause  which,  though  perfectly  ade- 
quate to  the  effect,  one  would  not  have  instantly 
guessed.  It  was  because  the  turnspit  in  the  king's 
kitchen  was  a  member  of  Parliament!*  The  king's 
domestic  servants  were  all  undone,  his  tradesmen 
remained  unpaid  and  became  bankrupt,  —  because  the 
turnspit  of  the  king's  kitchen  was  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment. His  Majesty's  slumbers  were  interrupted,  his 
pillow  was  stuffed  with  thorns,  and  his  peace  of  mind 
entirely  broken,  —  because  the  king''s  turnspit  ivas  a 
member  of  Parliament.  The  judges  were  unpaid, 
the  justice  of  the  kingdom  bent  and  gave  way,  the 
foreign  ministers  remained  inactive  and  unprovided, 
the  system  of  Europe  was  dissolved,  the  chain  of 
our  alliances  was  broken,  all  the  wheels  of  govern- 
ment at  home  and  abroad  were  stopped,  —  because 
the  kijig's  turnspit  was  a  member  of  Parliament. 

Such,  Sir,  was  the  situation  of  affairs,  and  such 
the  cause  of  that  situation,  when  his  Majesty  came  a 
second  time  to  Parliament  to  desire  the  payment  of 
those  debts  which  the  employment  of  its  members  in 
various  offices,  visible  and  invisible,  had  occasioned. 
I  believe  that  a  like  fate  will  attend  every  attempt  at 
economy  by  detail,  under  similar  circumstances,  and 
in  every  department.  A  complex,  operose  office  of 
account  and  control  is,  in  itself,  and  even  if  members 
of  Parliament  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  the  most 
prodigal  of  all  things.  The  most  audacious  robber- 
ies or  the  most  subtle  frauds  would  never  venture 
upon  such  a  waste  as  an  over-careful  detailed  guard 
against  them  will  infallibly  produce.     In  our  estab- 

•  Vide  Lord  Talbot's  speech  in  Almon's  Parliamentary  Register. 
VoL  VII.  p.  79,  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Lords. 


310  SPEECH    ON    THE    PLAN 

lishmeiits,  we  frequently  see  an  office  of  account  of 
an  hundred  pounds  a  year  expense,  and  another  office 
of  an  equal  expense  to  control  that  office,  and  the 
whole  upon  a  matter  that  is  not  worth  twenty  shil- 
lings. 

To  avoid,  therefore,  this  minute  care,  which  pro- 
duces the  consequences  of  the  most  extensive  neglect, 
and  to  oblige  members  of  Parliament  to  attend  to  pub- 
lic cares,  and  not  to  the  servile  offices  of  domestic 
management,  I  propose,  Sir,  to  economize  hy  principle : 
that  is,  I  propose  to  put  affairs  into  that  train  which 
experience  points  out  as  the  most  effectual,  from  the 
nature  of  things,  and  from  the  constitution  of  the 
human  mind.  In  all  dealings,  where  it  is  possi- 
ble, the  principles  of  radical  economy  prescribe  three 
things :  first,  undertaking  by  the  great ;  secondly, 
engaging  with  persons  of  skill  in  the  subject-matter ; 
thirdly,  engaging  with  those  who  shall  have  an  imme- 
diate and  direct  interest  in  the  proper  execution  of 
the  business. 

To  avoid  frittering  and  crumbling  down  the  atten- 
tion by  a  blind,  unsystematic  observance  of  every 
ti'ifle,  it  has  ever  been  found  the  best  way  to  do  all 
things  which  are  great  in  the  total  amount  and 
minute  in  the  component  parts  by  a  general  contract. 
The  principles  of  trade  have  so  pervaded  every  spe- 
cies of  dealing,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  ob- 
jects, all  transactions  are  got  so  much  into  system, 
that  we  may,  at  a  moment's  warning,  and  to  a  far- 
thing value,  be  informed  at  what  rate  any  service 
may  be  supplied.  No  dealing  is  exempt  from  the 
possibility  of  fraud.  But  by  a  contract  on  a  matter 
certain  you  have  this  advantage  :  you  are  sure  to 
know  the  utmost  extent  of  the  fraud  to  which  you 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  311 

are  snbject.  By  a  contract  with  a  person  in  his  own 
trade  you  are  sure  you  sliall  not  suffer  by  ivant  of 
skill.  By  a  short  contract  you  are  sure  of  making  it 
the  interest  of  the  contractor  to  exert  that  skill  for 
the  satisfaction  of  his  employers. 

I  mean  to  derogate  nothing  from  the  diligence  or 
integrity  of  the  present,  or  of  any  former  board  of 
Green  Cloth.  But  what  skill  can  members  of  Par- 
liament obtain  in  that  low  kind  of  provmce  ?  What 
pleasure  can  they  have  in  the  execution  of  that  kind 
of  duty  ?  And  if  they  should  neglect  it,  how  does  it 
affect  their  interest,  when  we  know  that  it  is  their  vote 
in  Parliament,  and  not  their  diligence  in  cookery  or 
catering,  that  recommends  them  to  their  office,  or 
keeps  them  in  it  ? 

I  therefore  propose  that  the  king's  tables  (to  what- 
ever number  of  tables,  or  covers  to  each,  he  shall 
think  proper  to  command)  should  be  classed  by  the 
steward  of  the  household,  and  should  be  contracted 
for,  according  to  their  rank,  by  the  head  or  cover; 
that  the  estimate  and  circumstance  of  the  contract 
should  be  carried  to  the  Treasury  to  be  approved ; 
and  that  its  faithful  and  satisfactory  performance 
should  be  reported  there  previous  to  any  payment ; 
that  there,  and  there  only,  should  the  payment  be 
made.  I  propose  that  men  should  bo  contracted  with 
only  in  their  proper  trade ;  and  that  no  member  of 
Parliament  should  be  capable  of  such  contract.  By 
this  plan,  almost  all  the  infinite  offices  under  the  lord 
steward  may  be  spared,  —  to  the  extreme  simplifica- 
tion, and  to  the  far  better  execution,  of  every  one 
of  his  functions.  The  king  of  Prussia  is  so  served. 
He  is  a  great  and  eminent  (tliough,  indeed,  a  very 
rare)  instance  of  the  possibility  of  uniting,  in  a  mind 


312  SPEECH    ON    THE    PLAN 

of  vigor  and  compass,  an  attention  to  minute  ©l3Jects 
with  the  largest  views  and  the  most  complicated 
plans.  His  tables  are  served  by  contract,  and  by  the 
head.  Let  me  say,  that  no  prince  can  be  ashamed 
to  imitate  the  king  of  Prussia,  and  particularly  to 
learn  in  liis  school,  when  the  problem  is,  "  The  best 
manner  of  reconciling  the  state  of  a  court  with  the 
support  of  war."  Other  courts,  I  understand,  have 
followed  him  with  effect,  and  to  their  satisfaction. 

Tlie  same  clew  of  principle  leads  us  through  the 
labyrinth  of  the  other  departments.  What,  Sir,  is 
there  in  the  office  of  the  great  wardrobe  (which  has 
the  care  of  the  king's  furniture)  that  may  not  be 
executed  by  the  lord  chamberlain  himself  ?  He  has 
an  honorable  appointment ;  he  has  time  sufficient  to 
attend  to  the  duty  ;  and  he  has  the  vice-chamberlain 
to  assist  him.  Why  should  not  he  deal  also  by  con- 
tract for  all  things  belonging  to  this  office,  and  carry 
his  estimates  first,  and  his  report  of  the  execution  in 
its  proper  time,  for  payment,  directly  to  the  Board  of 
Treasury  itself?  By  a  simple  operation,  (containing 
in  it  a  treble  control,)  the  expenses  of  a  department 
which  for  naked  walls,  or  walls  hung  with  cobwebs, 
has  in  a  few  years  cost  the  crown  150,000/.,  may  at 
length  hope  for  regulation.  But,  Sir,  the  office  and 
its  business  are  at  variance.  As  it  stands,  it  serves, 
not  to  furnisli  the  palace  with  its  liangings,  but  the 
Parliament  with  its  dependent  members. 

To  what  end,  Sir,  docs  the  office  of  removing  ward- 
robe serve  at  all  ?  Why  should  ii  jewel  office  exist  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  taxing  the  king's  gifts  of  plate  ? 
Its  object  falls  naturally  within  the  chamberlain's 
province,  and  ought  to  bo  nnder  his  care  and  inspec- 
tion without  any  fee.     Why  should  an  office  of  the 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  313 

robes  exist,  when  that  of  groom  of  the  stole  is  a  sine- 
cure, and  that  this  is  a  proper  object  of  his  depart- 
ment ? 

All  these  incumbrances,  which  are  themselves 
nuisances,  produce  other  incumbrances  and  other 
nuisances.  For  the  payment  of  these  useless  estab- 
lishments there  are  no  less  than  three  useless  treas- 
urers :  two  to  hold  a  purse,  and  one  to  play  witli  a 
stick.  The  treasurer  of  the  household  is  a  mere 
name.  The  cofferer  and  the  treasurer  of  the  cham- 
ber receive  and  pay  great  sums,  which  it  is  not  at  all 
necessary  thei/  should  either  receive  or  pay.  All  the 
proper  oflicers,  servants,  and  tradesmen  may  be  en- 
rolled in  their  several  departments,  and  paid  in 
proper  classes  and  times  with  great  simplicity  and 
order,  at  the  Exchequer,  and  by  direction  from  tho 
Treasury. 

The  Board  of  Works,  which  in  the  seven  years  pre- 
ceding 1777  has  cost  towards  400,000/.,*  and  (if  1 
recollect  rightly)  has  not  cost  less  in  proportion  from 
the  beginning  of  the  reign,  is  under  the  very  same 
description  of  all  the  other  ill-contrived  establish- 
ments, and  calls  for  the  very  same  reform.  We  are 
to  seek  for  the  visible  signs  of  all  this  expense.  For 
all  this  expense,  we  do  not  see  a  buildhig  of  the  size 
and  importance  of  a  pigeon-house.  Buckingham 
House  was  reprised  by  a  bargain  with  the  public 
for  one  hundred  thousand  pounds ;  and  the  small 
house  at  Windsor  has  been,  if  I  mistake  not,  under- 
taken since  that  account  was  brought  before  us. 
The  good  works  of  that  Board  of  AVorks  are  as  care- 
fully concealed  as  other  good  works  ought  to  be : 
they  are  perfectly  invisible.     But  thougli  it  is  the 

*  More  exactly,  378,G1G/.  10s.  lid. 


314  SPEECH   ON  THE   PLAN 

perfection  of  charity  to  be  concealed,  it  is,  Sir,  the 
property  and  glory  of  magnificence  to  appear  and 
stand  forward  to  the  eye. 

That  board,  which  ought  to  be  a  concern  of  build- 
ers and  such  like,  and  of  none  else,  is  turned  into  a 
junto  of  members  of  Parliament.  That  office,  too,  has 
a  treasury  and  a  paymaster  of  its  own ;  and  lest  the 
arduoiis  affairs  of  that  important  exchequer  should 
be  too  fatiguing,  that  paymaster  has  a  deputy  to  par- 
take his  profits  and  relieve  his  cares.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve, that,  either  now  or  in  former  times,  the  chief 
managers  of  that  board  have  made  any  profit  of  its 
abuse.  It  is,  however,  no  good  reason  that  an  abu- 
sive establishment  should  subsist,  because  it  is  of  as 
little  private  as  of  public  advantage.  But  this  estab- 
lishment has  the  grand  radical  fault,  the  original  sin, 
that  pervades  and  perverts  all  our  establishments : 
the  apparatus  is  not  fitted  to  the  object,  nor  the  work- 
men to  the  work.  Expenses  are  incurred  on  the  pri- 
vate opinion  of  an  inferior  establishment,  witliout 
consulting  the  principal,  who  can  alone  determine 
the  proportion  which  it  ought  to  bear  to  the  other 
establishments  of  the  state,  in  the  order  of  their  rel- 
ative importance. 

I  propose,  therefore,  along  with  the  rest,  to  pull 
down  this  whole  ill-contrived  scaffolding,  which  ob- 
structs, rather  than  forwards,  our  public  works ;  to 
take  away  its  treasury  ;  to  put  the  whole  into  the 
hands  of  a  real  builder,  wlio  shall  not  be  a  member 
of  Parliament ;  and  to  oblige  him,  by  a  previous  esti- 
mate and  final  payment,  to  appear  twice  at  the  Treas- 
iiry  before  the  public  can  be  loaded.  The  king's 
gardens  are  to  come  under  a  similar  regulation. 

Tlie  Mint^  though  not  a  department  of  the  house- 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  EEFORM.  315 

hold,  has  the  same  vices.  It  is  a  great  expense  to 
the  nation,  chiefly  for  the  sake  of  members  of  Parlia- 
ment. It  has  its  officers  of  parade  and  dignity.  It 
has  its  treasury,  too.  It  is  a  sort  of  corporate  body, 
and  formerly  was  a  body  of  great  importance,  —  as 
much  so,  on  the  then  scale  of  things,  and  the  then 
order  of  business,  as  the  Bank  is  at  this  day.  It  was 
the  great  centre  of  money  transactions  and  remit- 
tances for  our  own  and  for  other  nations,  until  King 
Charles  the  First,  among  other  arbitrary  projects 
dictated  by  despotic  necessity,  made  it  withhold  the 
money  that  lay  there  for  remittance.  That  blow 
(and  happily,  too)  the  Mint  never  recovered.  Now 
it  is  no  bank,  no  remittance-shop.  The  Mint,  Sir,  is 
a  manufacture,  and  it  is  nothing  else ;  and  it  ought 
to  be  undertaken  upon  the  principles  of  a  manufac- 
ture,—  that  is,  for  the  best  and  cheapest  execution, 
by  a  contract  upon  proper  securities  and  under  prop- 
er regulations. 

The  artillery  is  a  far  greater  object ;  it  is  a  military 
concern  ;  but  having  an  affinity  and  kindred  in  its 
defects  with  the  establishments  I  am  now  speaking  of, 
I  think  it  best  to  speak  of  it  along  with  them.  It  is, 
I  conceive,  an  establishment  not  well  suited  to  its 
martial,  though  exceedingly  well  calculated  for  its 
Parliamentary  purposes.  Here  there  is  a  treasury, 
as  in  all  the  other  inferior  departments  of  govern- 
ment. Here  the  military  is  subordinate  to  the  civil, 
and  the  naval  confounded  with  the  land  service.  The 
object,  indeed,  is  much  the  same  in  both.  But,  when 
the  detail  is  examined,  it  will  be  found  that  they  had 
better  be  separated.  For  a  reform  of  tliis  office,  I 
propose  to  restore  things  to  what  (all  considerations 
taken  together)  is  their  natural  order :    to  restore 


316  SPEECH    ON    THE   PLAN 

them  to  their  just  proportion,  and  to  their  just  distri 
bution.  I  propose,  in  this  military  concern,  to  render 
the  civil  subordinate  to  the  military  ;  and  this  will 
annihilate  the  greatest  part  of  the  expense,  and  all 
the  influence  belonging  to  the  office.  I  propose  to 
send  the  military  branch  to  the  army,  and  the  naval 
to  the  Admiralty  ;  and  I  intend  to  perfect  and  accom- 
plish the  whole  detail  (where  it  becomes  too  minute 
and  complicated  for  legislature,  and  requires  exact, 
official,  military,  and  mechanical  knowledge)  by  a 
commission  of  competent  officers  in  both  departments. 
I  propose  to  execute  by  contract  what  by  contract 
can  be  executed,  and  to  bring,  as  much  as  possible, 
all  estimates  to  be  previously  approved  and  finally  to 
be  paid  by  the  Treasury. 

Thus,  by  following  the  course  of  Nature,  and  not  the 
purposes  of  politics,  or  the  accumulated  patchwork  of 
occasional  accommodation,  this  vast,  expensive  depart- 
ment may  be  methodized,  its  service  proportioned  to 
its  necessities,  and  its  payments  subjected  to  the  in- 
spection of  the  superior  minister  of  finance,  who  is 
to  judge  of  it  on  the  result  of  the  total  collective  exi- 
gencies of  the  state.  This  last  is  a  reigning  principle 
through  my  whole  plan  ;  and  it  is  a  principle  which  I 
hope  may  hereafter  be  applied  to  other  plans. 

By  these  regulations  taken  together,  besides  the 
three  subordinate  treasuries  in  the  lesser  principali- 
ties, five  other  subordinate  treasuries  are  suppressed. 
There  is  taken  away  the  whole  establishment  of  detail 
in  the  household :  the  treasurer;  the  comptroller  (for 
a  comptroller  is  hardly  necessary  where  there  is  no 
treasurer)  ;  the  cofferer  of  the  household ;  the  treas- 
urer of  the  chamber  ;  the  master  of  the  household  ;  the 
whole  board  of  green  cloth  ;  —  and  a  vast  number  of 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  EEFORM.  317 

subordinate  offices  in  the  department  of  the  steward 
of  the  houseJiold,  —  the  whole  establishment  of  the 
great  wardrobe,  —  the  removing  ivardrohe,  —  the  jewel 
office,  —  the  robes,  —  the  Board  of  TFor^Sj-r- almost  the 
whole  cliarge  of  the  civil  branch  of  the  Board  of  Ord- 
nance, are  taken  away.  All  these  arrangements  to- 
crethcr  will  bo  found  to  relieve  the  nation  from  a  vast 
weight  of  influence,  without  distressing,  but  rather  by 
forwarding  every  public  service.  When  something 
of  this  kind  is  done,  then  the  public  may  begin  to 
breathe.  Under  other  governments,  a  question  of  ex- 
pense is  only  a  question  of  economy,  and  it  is  noth- 
ing more  :  with  us,  in  every  question  of  expense  there 
is  always  a  mixture  of  constitutional  considerations. 

It  is.  Sir,  because  I  wish  to  keep  this  business  of 
subordinate  treasuries  as  much  as  I  can  together,  that 
I  brought  the  ordnance  office  before  you,  though  it  is 
properly  a  military  department.  For  the  same  rea- 
son I  will  now  trouble  you  with  my  thoughts  and 
propositions  upon  two  of  the  greatest  under-treasuries  : 
I  mean  the  office  of  paymaster  of  the  land  forces,  or 
treasurer  of  the  army,  and  that  of  the  treasurer  of  the 
navy.  The  former  of  these  has  long  been  a  great 
object  of  public  suspicion  and  uneasiness.  Envy,  too, 
has  had  its  share  in  the  obloquy  which  is  cast  upon 
this  office.  But  I  am  sure  that  it  has  no  share  at  all 
in  the  reflections  I  shall  make  upon  it,  or  in  the  refor- 
mations that  I  shall  propose.  I  do  not  grudge  to  the 
honorable  gentleman  who  at  present  holds  the  office 
any  of  the  effects  of  his  talents,  his  merit,  or  his  for- 
tune. He  is  respectable  in  all  these  particulars.  I 
follow  the  constitution  of  the  office  without  persecut- 
ing its  liolder.  It  is  necessary  in  all  matters  of  public 
complaint,  where  men  frequently  feel  right  and  argue 


318  "SPEECH   ON   THE   PLAN 

wrong,  to  separate  prejudice  from  reason,  and  to  be 
very  sure,  in  attempting  the  redress  of  a  grievance, 
that  we  hit  upon  its  real  seat  and  its  true  nature. 
Where  there  is  an  abuse  in  office,  the  first  thing  that 
occurs  in  heat  is  to  censure  the  officer.  Our  natural 
disposition  leads  all  our  inquiries  rather  to  persons 
than  to  things.  But  this  prejudice  is  to  be  corrected 
by  maturer  thinking. 

Sir,  the  profits  of  the  jiay  office  (as  an  office)  are 
not  too  great,  in  my  opinion,  for  its  duties,  and  for 
the  rank  of  the  person  who  has  generally  held  it.  He 
has  been  generally  a  person  of  the  highest  rank, — 
that  is  to  say,  a  person  of  eminence  and  consideration 
in  this  House.  The  great  and  the  invidious  profits 
of  the  pay  office  are  from  the  hank  that  is  held  in  it. 
According  to  the  present  course  of  the  office,  and 
according  to  the  present  mode  of  accounting  there, 
this  bank  must  necessarily  exist  somewhere.  Money 
is  a  productive  thing ;  and  when  the  usual  time  of 
its  demand  can  be  tolerably  calculated,  it  may  with 
prudence  be  safely  laid  out  to  the  profit  of  the  hold- 
er. It  is  on  this  calculation  that  the  business  of 
banking  proceeds.  But  no  profit  can  be  derived 
from  the  use  of  money  which  does  not  make  it  the 
interest  of  the  holder  to  delay  his  account.  The 
process  of  the  Exchequer  colludes  with  this  interest. 
Is  this  collusion  from  its  want  of  rigor  and  strictness 
and  great  regularity  of  form  ?  The  reverse  is  true. 
They  have  in  the  Exchequer  brought  rigor  and  for- 
malism to  their  ultimate  perfection.  The  process 
against  accountants  is  so  rigorous,  and  in  a  manner 
so  unjust,  that  correctives  must  from  time  to  time 
be  applied  to  it.  These  correctives  being  discretion- 
ary, upon  the  case,  and  generally  remitted  by  the 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  EEFORM.  319 

Barons  to  the  Lords  of  the  Treasury,  as  the  best  judges 
of  the  reasons  for  respite,  hearings  arc  had,  delays 
are  produced,  and  thus  the  extreme  of  rigor  in  office 
(as  usual  in  all  human  affairs)  leads  to  the  extreme 
of  laxity.  What  with  the  interested  delay  of  the 
officer,  the  ill-conceiyed  exactness  of  the  court,  the 
applications  for  dispensations  from  that  exactness, 
the  rerival  of  rigorous  process  after  the  expiration 
of  the  time,  and  the  new  rigors  producing  new  ap- 
plications and  new  enlargements  of  time,  such  de- 
lays happen  in  the  public  accounts  that  they  can 
scarcely  ever  be  closed. 

Besides,  Sir,  they  have  a  rule  in  the  Exchequer, 
which,  I  believe,  they  have  founded  upon  a  very 
ancient  statute,  that  of  the  51st  of  Henry  the  Third, 
by  which  it  is  provided,  that,  "  when  a  sheriff  or 
bailiff  hath  begun  his  account,  none  other  shall  be 
received  to  account,  until  he  that  was  first  appointed 
hath  clearly  accounted,  and  that  the  sum  has  been 
received."  *  Whether  this  clause  of  that  statute  be 
the  ground  of  that  absurd  practice  I  am  not  quite 
able  to  ascertain.  But  it  has  very  generally  prevail- 
ed, though  I  am  told  that  of  late  they  have  began  to 
relax  from  it.  In  consequence  of  forms  adverse  to 
substantial  account,  we  have  a  long  succession  of 
paymasters  and  their  representatives  who  have  never 
been  admitted  to  account,  although  perfectly  ready 
to  do  so. 

As  the  extent  of  our  wars  has  scattered  the  ac- 
countants under  the  paymaster  into  every  part  of  the 
globe,  the  grand  and  sure  paymaster.  Death,  in  alibis 

*  Et  quaunt  viscount  ou  baillif  cit  comenco  dc  acompter,  nul 
autre  nc  scit  resccu  de  acontcr  tanquc  Ic  primer  qe  soit  assis  eit 
peraccoinpte,  et  qe  la  somine  soit  resceu.  —  Stat.  5.  Ann.  Dom.  1266 


320  SPEECH    ON    THE    PLAN 

shapes,  calls  these  accountants  to  another  reckoning. 
Deatli,  indeed,  domineers  over  everything  but  the 
forms  of  the  Excliequer.  Over  tliese  he  has  no  pow- 
er. They  are  impassive  and  immortal.  The  audit  of 
the  Exchequer,  more  severe  than  the  audit  to  which 
the  accountants  are  gone,  demands  proofs  whicli  in 
the  nature  of  things  are  difficult,  sometimes  impossi- 
ble, to  be  had.  In  this  respect,  too,  rigor,  as  usual, 
defeats  itself.  Then  the  Exchequer  never  gives  a 
particular  receipt,  or  clears  a  man  of  his  account  as 
far  as  it  goes.  A  final  acquittance  (or  a  quietus,  as 
they  term  it)  is  scarcely  ever  to  be  obtained.  Ter- 
rors and  ghosts  of  unlaid  accountants  haunt  the 
houses  of  their  children  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion. Families,  in  the  course  of  succession,  fail  into 
minorities ;  the  inheritance  comes  into  the  hands  of 
females  ;  and  very  perplexed  affairs  are  often  deliv- 
ered over  into  the  hands  of  negligent  guardians  and 
faithless  stewards.  So  that  the  demand  remains, 
when  the  advantage  of  the  money  is  gone,  —  if  ever 
any  advantage  at  all  has  been  made  of  it.  This  is  a 
cause  of  infinite  distress  to  families,  and  becomes  a 
source  of  influence  to  an  extent  that  can  scarcely  be 
imagined,  but  by  those  who  have  taken  some  pains  to 
trace  it.  The  mildness  of  government,  in  the  employ- 
ment of  useless  and  dangerous  powers,  furnishes  no 
reason  for  their  continuance. 

As  things  stand,  can  you  in  justice  (except  perhaps 
in  that  over-perfect  kind  of  justice  which  has  obtained 
by  its  merits  the  title  of  the  opposite  vice  *)  insist 
that  any  man  should,  by  the  course  of  his  office,  keep 
a  bank  from  whence  he  is  to  derive  no  advantage  ? 
that  a  man  should  be  subject  to  demands  below  and 

*  Summum  jus  summa  injuria. 


FOE  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  321 

be  in  a  manner  refused  an  acquittance  above,  that 
he  should  transmit  an  original  sin  and  inheritance  of 
vexation  to  his  posterity,  without  a  power  of  compen- 
sating himself  in  some  way  or  other  for  so  perilous  a 
situation  ?  We  know,  that,  if  the  paymaster  should 
deny  himself  the  advantages  of  his  bank,  the  public, 
as  things  stand,  is  not  the  richer  for  it  by  a  single 
shilling.  This  I  thought  it  necessary  to  say  as  to  the 
offensive  magnitude  of  the  profits  of  this  office,  that 
we  may  proceed  in  reformation  on  the  principles  of 
reason,  and  not  on  the  feelings  of  envy. 

The  treasurer  of  the  navy  is,  mutatis  mutandis,  in 
the  same  circumstances.  Indeed,  all  accountants  are. 
Instead  of  the  present  mode,  which  is  troublesome  to 
the  officer  and  unprofitable  to  the  public,  I  propose 
to  substitute  something  more  effectual  than  rigor, 
which  is  the  worst  exactor  in  the  world.  I  mean  to 
remove  the  very  temptations  to  delay  ;  to  facilitate 
the  account ;  and  to  transfer  this  bank,  now  of  private 
emolument,  to  the  public.  The  crown  will  suffer  no 
wrong  at  least  from  the  pay  offices  ;  and  its  terrors 
will  no  longer  reign  over  the  families  of  those  who 
hold  or  have  held  them.  I  propose  that  these  offices 
should  be  no  longer  hanks  or  treasmnes,  but  mere  offices 
of  administration.  I  propose,  first,  that  the  present 
paymaster  and  the  treasurer  of  the  navy  should  carry 
into  the  Exchequer  the  whole  body  of  the  vouchers 
for  what  they  have  paid  over  to  deputy-paymasters, 
to  regimental  agents,  or  to  any  of  those  to  whom  they 
have  and  ought  to  have  paid  money.  I  propose  that 
those  vouchers  sliall  be  admitted  as  actual  payments 
in  thoir  accounts,  and  that  the  persons  to  whom  the 
money  has  been  paid  shall  then  stand  charged  in  the 
Exchequer  in  their  place.     After  this  process,  they 

VOL.  II  21 


322  SPEECH    ON   THE   PLAN 

shall  be  debited  or  charged  for  nothing  but  the  mon- 
ey-balance that  remains  in  their  hands. 

I  am  conscious,  Sir,  that,  if  this  balance  (which  they 
could  not  expect  to  be  so  suddenly  demanded  by  any 
usual  process  of  the  Exchequer)  should  now  be  exacted 
all  at  once,  not  only  their  ruin,. but  a  ruin  of  others 
to  an  extent  which  I  do  not  like  to  think  of,  but 
which  I  can  well  conceive,  and  which  you  may  well 
conceive,  might  be  the  consequence.  I  told  you.  Sir, 
when  I  promised  before  the  holidays  to  bring  in  this 
plan,  that  I  never  would  suffer  any  man  or  descrip- 
tion of  men  to  suffer  from  errors  that  naturally  have 
grown  out  of  the  abusive  constitution  of  those  offices 
which  I  propose  to  regulate.  If  I  cannot  reform 
with  equity,  I  will  not  reform  at  all. 

For  the  regulation  of  past  accounts,  I  shall  there- 
fore propose  such  a  mode,  as  men,  temperate  and 
prudent,  make  use  of  in  the  management  of  their 
private  affairs,  when  their  accounts  are  various,  per- 
plexed, and  of  long  standing.  I  would  therefore, 
after  their  example,  divide  the  public  debts  into  three 
sorts,  —  good,  bad,  and  doubtful.  In  looking  over  the 
public  accoimts,  I  should  never  dream  of  the  blind 
mode  of  the  Exchequer,  which  regards  things  in  the 
abstract,  and  knows  no  difference  in  the  quality  of  its 
debts  or  the  circumstances  of  its  debtors.  By  this 
means  it  fatigues  Itself,  it  vexes  others,  it  often 
crushes  the  poor,  it  lets  escape  the  rich,  or,  in  a  fit 
of  mercy  or  carelessness,  declines  all  means  of  recov- 
ering its  just  demands.  Content  with  the  eternity  of 
its  claims,  it  e:\joys  its  Epicurean  divinity  with  Epicu- 
rean languor.  But  it  is  proper  that  all  sorts  of  ac- 
counts should  be  closed  some  time  or  other,  —  by  pay- 
ment, by  composition,  or  by  oblivion.     Expedit  reipiih- 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  323 

Ucce  ut  sit  finis  litinm.  Constantly  taking  along  with 
me,  that  an  extreme  rigor  is  sure  to  arm  everything 
against  it,  and  at  length  to  relax  into  a  supine  neg- 
lect, I  propose,  Sir,  that  even  the  best,  soundest,  and 
the  most  recent  debts  should  be  put  into  instalments, 
for  the  mutual  benefit  of  the  accountant  and  the 
public. 

In  proportion,  however,  as  I  am  tender  of  the  past, 
I  would  be  provident  of  the  future.  All  money  that 
was  formerly  imprested  to  the  two  great  pay  offices 
1  would  have  imprested  in  future  to  the  Bank  of 
England.  These  offices  should  in  future  receive  no 
more  than  cash  sufficient  for  small  payments.  Their 
other  payments  ought  to  be  made  by  drafts  on  the 
Bank,  expressing  the  service.  A  check  account 
from  both  offices,  of  drafts  and  receipts,  should  be 
annually  made  up  in  the  Exchequer,  —  charging  the 
Bank  in  account  with  the  cash  balance,  but  not  de- 
manding the  payment  until  there  is  an  order  from  the 
Treasury,  in  consequence  of  a  vote  of  Parliament. 

As  I  did  not.  Sir,  deny  to  the  paymaster  the  natural 
profits  of  the  bank  that  was  in  his  hands,  so  neither 
would  I  to  the  Bank  of  England.  A  share  of  that 
profit  might  be  derived  to  tlie  public  in  various  ways. 
My  favorite  mode  is  this :  that,  in  compensation  for 
the  use  of  this  money,  the  bank  may  take  upon  them- 
selves, first,  the  charge  of  the  Mint,  to  which  they  are 
already,  by  their  charter,  obliged  to  bring  in  a  great 
deal  of  bullion  annually  to  be  coined.  In  tlie  iicxt 
place,  I  mean  that  they  should  take  upon  themselves 
the  charge  of  remittances  to  our  troops  abroad.  This 
is  a  species  of  dealing  from  wliicli,  by  the  same  char- 
ter, they  are  not  debarred.  One  and  a  quarter  per 
cent  will  be  saved  instantly  thereby  to  the  pul)lic  ou 


324  SPEECH    ON    THE   PLAN 

very  large  sums  of  money.  This  will  be  at  once  a 
matter  of  economy  and  a  considerable  reduction  of 
influence,  by  taking  away  a  private  contract  of  an 
expensive  nature.  If  the  Bank,  which  is  a  great 
corporation,  and  of  course  receives  the  least  profits 
from  the  money  in  their,  custody,  should  of  itself 
refuse  or  be  persuaded  to  refuse  this  offer  upon 
those  terms,  I  can  speak  with  some  confidence  that 
one  at  least,  if  not  both  parts  of  the  condition  would 
be  received,  and  gratefully  received,  by  several  bankers 
of  eminence.  There  is  no  bunker  who  will  not  be  at 
least  as  good  security  as  any  paymaster  of  the  forces, 
or  any  treasurer  of  the  navy,  that  have  ever  been 
bankers  to  the  public :  as  rich  at  least  as  my  Lord 
Chatham,  or  my  Lord  Holland,  or  either  of  the  hon- 
orable gentlemen  who  now  hold  the  offices,  were  at 
the  time  that  they  entered  into  them  ;  or  as  ever  the 
whole  establishment  of  the  Mint  has  been  at  any 
period. 

These,  Sir,  are  the  outlines  of  the  plan  I  mean  to 
follow,  in  suppressing  these  two  large  subordinate 
treasuries.  I  now  come  to  another  subordinate  treas- 
ury, —  I  mean  that  of  the  paymaster  of  the  j^ensions  ; 
for  wliicli  purpose  I  reenter  the  limits  of  the  civil 
establishment :  I  departed  from  those  limits  in  pnr- 
'  suit  of  a  principle  ;  and,  following  the  same  game 
in  its  doubles,  I  am  brought  into  those  limits  again. 
That  treasury  and  that  office  I  mean  to  take  away, 
and  to  transfer  the  payment  of  every  name,  mode, 
and  denomination  of  pensions  to  the  Exchequer.  The 
present  course  of  diversifying  the  same  object  can 
answer  no  good  purpose,  whatever  its  use  may  be  to 
purposes  of  another  kind.  There  are  also  other  lists 
of  pensions  ;  and  I  mean  that  they  should  all  be  here- 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  325 

after  paid  at  one  and  the  same  place.  The  whole  of 
the  new  consolidated  list  I  mean  to  reduce  to  60,000Z. 
a  year,  which  sum  1  intend  it  shall  never  exceed.  I 
think  that  sum  will  fully  answer  as  a  reward  to  all 
real  merit  and  a  provision  for  all  real  public  charity 
that  is  ever  like  to  be  jjlaced  upon  the  list.  If  any 
merit  of  an  extraordinary  nature  should  emerge  be- 
fore that  reduction  is  completed,  I  have  left  it  open 
for  an  address  of  either  House  of  Parliament  to  pro- 
vide for  the  case.  To  all  other  demands  it  must  be 
answered,  with  regret,  but  with  firmness,  "  The  pub- 
lic is  poor." 

I  do  not  propose,  as  I  told  you  before  Christmas, 
to  take  away  any  pension.  I  know  that  the  public 
seem  to  call  for  a  reduction  of  such  of  them  as  shall 
appear  unmerited.  As  a  censorial  act,  and  punish- 
ment of  an  abuse,  it  might  answer  some  purpose. 
But  this  can  make  no  part  of  my  plan.  I  mean  to 
proceed  by  bill ;  and  I  cannot  stop  for  such  an  in- 
quiry. I  know  some  gentlemen  may  blame  me.  It 
is  with  great  submission  to  better  judgments  that  I 
recommend  it  to  consideration,  that  a  critical  retro- 
spective examination  of  the  pension  list,  upon  the 
principle  of  merit,  can  never  serve  for  my  basis.  It 
cannot  answer,  according  to  my  plan,  any  effectual 
purpose  of  economy,  or  of  future,  permanent  refor- 
mation. The  process  in  any  way  will  be  entangled 
and  difficult,  and  it  will  be  infinitely  slow :  there  is  a 
danger,  that,  if  we  tunl  our  line  of  march,  now  direct- 
ed towards  the  grand  object,  into  this  more  laborious 
than  useful  detail  of  oi)erations,  we  shall  never  arrive 
at  our  end. 

The  king.  Sir,  has  been  by  the  Constitution  appohifc- 
ed  sole  judge  of  the  merit  for  which  a  pension  is  to 


§26  SPEECH    ON    THE   PLAN 

be  given.  We  have  a  riglit,  undoubtedly,  to  canvass 
this,  as  we  have  to  canvass  every  act  of  government. 
But  there  is  a  material  difference  between  an  office 
to  be  reformed  and  a  pension  taken  away  for  demerit. 
In  the  former  case,  no  charge  is  implied  against  the 
holder ;  in  the  latter,  his  character  is  slurred,  as  well 
as  his  lawful  emolument  affected.  The  former  pro- 
cess is  against  the  thing ;  the  second,  against  the  per- 
son. The  pensioner  certainly,  if  he  pleases,  has  a 
right  to  stand  on  his  own  defence,  to  plead  his 
possession,  and  to  bottom  his  title  in  the  competency 
of  the  crown  to  give  him  what  he  holds.  Possessed 
and  on  the  defensive  as  he  is,  he  will  not  be  obliged 
to  prove  his  special  merit,  in  order  to  justify  the  act 
of -legal  discretion,  now  turned  into  his  property, 
according  to  his  tenure.  The  very  act,  he  will  con- 
tend, is  a  legal  presumption,  and  an  implication  of 
his  merit.  If  this  be  so,  from  the  natural  force  of 
all  legal  presumption,  he  would  put  us  to  the  difficult 
proof  that  he  has  no  merit  at  all.  But  other  ques- 
tions would  arise  in  the  course  of  such  an  inquiry,  — 
that  is,  questions  of  the  merit  when  weighed  against 
the  proportion  of  the  reward  ;  then  the  dijfficulty  will 
be  much  greater. 

The  difficulty  will  not.  Sir,  I  am  afraid,  be  much 
less,  if  we  pass  to  the  person  really  guilty  in  the  ques- 
tion of  an  unmerited  pension  :  the  minister  himself. 
I  admit,  that,  when  called  to  account  for  the  execu- 
tion of  a  trust,  he  might  fairly  be  obliged  to  prove 
the  affirmative,  and  to  state  the  merit  for  which  the 
pension  is  given,  though  on  the  pensioner  himself 
such  a  process  would  be  hard.  If  in  this  examina- 
tion we  proceed  methodically,  and  so  as  to  avoid  all 
suspicion  of  partiality  and  prejudice,  we  must  take 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  327 

the  pensions  in  order  of  time,  or  merely  alphabeti- 
cally. The  very  first  pension  to  which  we  come,  in 
either  of  these  ways,  may  appear  the  most  grossly 
unmerited  of  any.  But  the  minister  may  very  possi- 
bly show  that  he  knows  nothing  of  the  putting  on  this 
pension  ;  that  it  was  prior  in  time  to  his  administra- 
tion ;  that  the  minister  who  laid  it  on  is  dead  :  and 
then  we  are  thrown  back  upon  the  pensioner  himself, 
and  plunged  into  all  our  former  difficulties.  Abuses, 
and  gross  ones,  I  doubt  not,  would  appear,  and  to  the 
correction  of  Avhich  I  would  readily  give  my  hand : 
but  when  I  consider  that  pensions  have  not  generally 
been  affected  by  the  revolutions  of  ministry  ;  as  I 
know  not  where  such  inquiries  would  stop ;  and  as 
an  absence  of  merit  is  a  negative  and  loose  thing ;  — 
one  miglit  be  led  to  derange  the  order  of  families 
founded  on  the  probable  continuance  of  their  kind  of 
income  ;  I  might  hurt  children  ;  I  might  injure  cred- 
itors;—  I  really  think  it  the  more  prudent  course  not 
to  follow  the  letter  of  the  petitions.  If  we  fix  this 
mode  of  inquiry  as  a  basis,  we  shall,  I  fear,  end  as 
Parliament  has  often  ended  under  similar  circum- 
stances. There  will  be  great  delay,  much  confu- 
sion, much  inequality  in  our  proceedings.  But  what 
presses  me  most  of  all  is  this  :  that,  though  we  should 
strike  off  all  the  unmerited  pensions,  while  the  power 
of  the  crown  remains  unlimited,  the  very  same  unde- 
serving persons  miglit  afterwards  return  to  the  very 
same  list  ;•  or,  if  they  did  not,  other  persons,  meriting 
as  little  as  they  do,  might  be  put  upon  it  to  an  unde- 
finable  amount.  This,  I  think,  is  the  pinch  of  the 
grievance. 

For  these  reasons.  Sir,  I  am  obliged  to  waive  this 
mode  of  proceeding  as  any  part  of  my  plan.     In  a 


328  SPEECH    ON    THE    PLAN 

plan  of  reformation,  it  would  be  one  of  my  maxims, 
that,  when  I  know  of  an  establishment  which  may  be 
subservient  to  useful  purposes,  and  which  at  tlie  same 
time,  from  its  discretionary  nature,  is  liable  to  a  very 
great  perversion  from  those  purposes,  I  would  limit  the 
quantity  of  the  power  that  might  he  so  abused.  For  I  am 
sure  tliat  in  all  sucli  cases  the  rewards  of  merit  will 
have  very  narrow  bounds,  and  that  partial  or  corrupt 
favor  will  be  infinite.  This  principle  is  not  arbitrary, 
but  tlie  limitation  of  the  specific  quantity  must  be  so 
in  some  measure.  I  therefore  state  60,000?.,  leaving 
it  open  to  tlie  House  to  enlarge  or  contract  tlie  sum 
as  they  shall  see,  on  examination,  that  the  discretion 
I  use  is  scanty  or  liberal.  The  whole  amount  of  the 
pensions  of  all  denominations  which  have  been  laid 
before  us  amount,  for  a  period  of  seven  years,  to  con- 
siderably more  than  100,000/.  a  year.  To  what  the 
other  lists  amount  I  know  not.  That  will  be  seen 
hereafter.  But  from  those  that  do  appear,  a  saving 
will  accrue  to  the  public,  at  one  time  or  other,  of 
40,000/.  a  year ;  and  we  had  better,  in  my  opinion, 
to  let  it  fall  in  naturally  than  to  tear  it  crude  and 
unripe  from  the  stalk.* 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  uneasiness  among  the 
people  upon  an  article  which  I  must  class  under  the 
head  of  pensions  :  I  mean  the  great  patent  offices  in  the 
Exchequer.  They  are  in  reality  and  substance  no  oth- 
er than  pensions,  and  in  no  other  liglit  shall  I  consider 

*  It  was  supposed  by  the  Lord  Advocate,  in  a  subsequent  debate, 
that  Mr.  Burke,  because  he  objected  to  an  inquiry  into  the  pension 
list  for  the  purpose  of  economy  and  relief  of  the  public,  would  have 
it  withheld  from  thejudgment  of  Parliament  for  all  purposes  whatso- 
ever. This  learned  gentleman  certainly  misunderstood  him.  His 
plan  shows  that  he  wished  the  whole  list  to  be  easily  accessible ;  and 
he  knows  that  the  public  eye  is  of  itself  a  great  guard  against  abuse. 


FOE  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  329 

them  They  are  sinecures  ;  they  are  always  execut- 
ed by  deputy  ;  the  duty  of  the  principal  is  as  nothing. 
They  differ,  however,  from  the  pensions  on  the  list  in 
some  particulars.  They  are  held  for  life.  I  think, 
with  the  public,  that  the  profits  of  those  places  are 
grown  enormous  ;  the  magnitude  of  those  profits,  and 
the  nature  of  them,  both  call  for  reformation.  The 
nature  of  their  profits,  which  grow  out  of  the  public 
distress,  is  itself  invidious  and  grievous.  But  I  fear 
that  reform  cannot  be  immediate.  I  find  myself  un- 
der a  restriction.  Tliesc  places,  and  others  of  the 
same  kind,  which  are  held  for  life,  have  been  consid- 
ered as  property.  They  have  been  given  as  a  provis- 
ion for  children  ;  they  have  been  the  subject  of  family 
settlements  ;  they  have  been  the  security  of  creditors. 
What  the  law  respects  shall  be  sacred  to  me.  If  the 
barriers  of  law  should  be  broken  down,  upon  ideas 
of  convenience,  even  of  public  convenience,  we  shall 
have  no  longer  anything  certain  among  us.  If  the 
discretion  of  power  is  once  let  loose  upon  property, 
we  can  be  at  no  loss  to  determine  whose  power  and 
what  discretion  it  is  that  will  prevail  at  last.  Ifc 
would  be  wise  to  attend  upon  the  order  of  things, 
and  not  to  attempt  to  outrun  the  slow,  but  smooth 
and  even  course  of  Nature.  There  are  occasions,  I 
admit,  of  public  necessity,  so  vast,  so  clear,  so  evident, 
tliat  they  supersede  all  laws.  Law,  being  only  made 
for  the  benefit  of  the  community,  cannot  in  any  one 
of  its  parts  resist  a  demand  which  may  comprehend 
the  total  of  the  public  interest.  To  be  sure,  no  law 
can  set  itself  up  against  the  cause  and  reason  of  all 
law ;  but  such  a  case  very  rarely  happens,  and  this 
most  certainly  is  not  such  a  case.  The  mere  time  of 
the  reform  is  by  no  means  worth  the  sacrifice  of  a 


830  SPEECH    ON    THE   PLAN 

principle  of  law.  Individuals  pass  like  shadows  ;  but 
the  commonwealth  is  fixed  and  stable.  The  differ- 
ence, therefore,  of  to-day  and  to-morrow,  which  to 
private  people  is  immense,  to  the  state  is  nothing. 
A.t  any  rate,  it  is  better,  if  possible,  to  reconcile  our 
economy  with  our  laws  than  to  set  them  at  variance, 
■ —  a  quarrel  which  in  the  end  must  be  destructive  to 
both. 

My  idea,  therefore,  is,  to  reduce  those  offices  to 
fixed  salaries,  as  the  present  lives  and  reversions 
shall  successively  fall.  I  mean,  that  the  office  of  the 
great  auditor  (the  auditor  of  the  receipt)  shall  be 
reduced  to  3000^.  a  year ;  and  the  auditors  of  the 
imprest,  and  the  rest  of  the  principal  officers,  to  fixed 
appointments  of  1,500L  a  year  each.  It  will  not  be 
difficult  to  calculate  the  value  of  this  fall  of  lives  to 
the  public,  when  we  shall  have  obtained  a  just  ac- 
count of  the  present  income  of  those  places  ;  and  we 
shall  obtain  that  account  with  great  facility,  if  the 
present  possessors  are  not  alarmed  with  any  appre- 
hension of  danger  to  their  freehold  office. 

I  know,  too,  that  it  will  be  demanded  of  me,  how 
it  comes,  that,  since  I  admit  these  offices  to  be  no 
better  than  pensions,  I  chose,  after  the  principle  of 
law  had  been  satisfied,  to  retain  them  at  all.  To 
this,  Sir,  I  answer,  that,  conceiving  it  to  be  a  funda- 
mental part  of  the  Constitution  of  this  coimtry,  and 
of  the  reason  of  state  in  every  country,  that  there 
must  be  means  of  rewarding  public  service,  those 
means  will  be  incomplete,  and  indeed  wholly  insuffi- 
cient for  that  purpose,  if  there  should  be  no  further 
reward  for  that  service  than  the  daily  wages  it  re- 
ceives dui"ing  the  pleasure  of  the  crown. 

Whoever   seriously  considers  the  excellent   argu- 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  331 

ment  of  Lord  Somers,  in  the  Bankers'  Case,  will  see 
he  bottoms  himself  upon  the  very  same  maxim  which 
I  do  ;  and  one  of  his  principal  grounds  of  doctrine  for 
the  alienability  of  the  domain  in  England,*  contrary 
to  the  maxim  of  the  law  in  France,  he  layt.'  in  the 
constitutional  policy  of  furnishing  a  permanent  re- 
ward to  public  service,  of  making  that  reward  the 
origin  of  families,  and  the  foundation  of  wealth  as 
well  as  of  honors.     It  is,  indeed,  the  only  genuine, 
unadulterated  origin  of  nobility.     It  is  a  great  prin- 
ciple in  government,  a  principle  at  the  very  founda- 
tion of  the  whole  structure.     The  other  judges  who 
held  the  same  doctrine  went  beyond  Lord  Somers 
with  regard  to  the  remedy  which  they  thought  was 
given  by  law  against  the  crown  upon  the  grant 'of 
pensions.     Indeed,  no  man  knows,  when  he  cuts  off 
the  incitements  to  a  virtuous  ambition,  and  the  just 
rewards  of  public  service,  what  infinite  mischief  he 
may  do  his  country  through  all  generations.     Such 
saving  to  the  puljlic  may  prove  the  worst  mode  of  rob- 
bing it.     The  crown,  which  has  in  its  hands  the  trust 
of  the  daily  pay  for  national  service,  ought  to  have 
in  its  hands  also  the  means  for  the  repose  of  pub- 
lic labor  and  the  fixed  settlement  of  acknowledged 
merit.     There  is  a  time  when  the  weather-beaten  ves- 
sels of  the  state  ought  to  come  into  harbor.     They 
must  at  length  have  a  retreat  from  the  malice  of 
rivals,  from  the  perfidy  of  political  friends,  and  the 
inconstancy  of  the  people.     Many  of  the  persons  who 
in  all  times  have  filled  the  great  offices  of  state  have 
been  younger  brothers,  who  had  originally  little,  if 
any  fortune.     These  offices  do  not  furnish  the  means 

*  Before  the  statute  of  Queen  Anne,  which  limited  the  alienation 
of  land 


332  SPEECH    ON    THE    PLAN 

of  amassing  wealth.  There  ought  to  be  some  power 
in  the  crown  of  granting  pensions  out  of  the  reach  of 
its  own  caprices.  An  entail  of  dependence  is  a  bad 
reward  of  merit. 

I  would  therefore  leave  to  the  crovvn  the  possi- 
bility of  conferring  some  favors,  which,  whilst  they 
are  received  as  a  reward,  do  not  operate  as  corrup- 
tion. When  men  receive  obligations  from  the  crown, 
through  the  pious  hands  of  fathers,  or  of  connections 
as  venerable  as  the  paternal,  the  dependences  which 
arise  from  thence  are  the  obligations  of  gratitude,  and 
not  the  fetters  of  servility.  Such  ties  originate  in  vir- 
tue, and  they  promote  it.  They  continue  men  in 
those  habitudes  of  friendship,  those  political  connec- 
tions, and  those  political  principles,  in  which  they  be- 
gan life.  They  are  antidotes  against  a  corrupt  levity, 
instead  of  causes  of  it.  What  an  unseemly  spectacle 
would  it  afford,  what  a  disgrace  would  it  be  to  the 
commonwealth  that  suffered  such  things,  to  see  the 
hopeful  son  of  a  meritorious  minister  begging  his  bread 
at  the  door  of  that  Treasury  from  whence  his  father 
dispensed  the  economy  of  an  empire,  and  promoted 
the  happiness  and  glory  of  his  country  !  Why  shoidd 
he  be  obliged  to  prostrate  his  honor  and  to  submit 
his  principles  at  the  levee  of  some  proud  favorite, 
shouldered  and  thrust  aside  by  every  impudent  pre- 
tender on  the  very  spot  where  a  few  days  before  he 
saw  himself  adored,  —  obliged  to  cringe  to  the  au- 
thor of  the  calamities  of  his  house,  and  to  kiss  the 
hands  that  are  red  with  his  father's  blood  ?  —  No,  Sir, 
these  things  are  unfit,  —  they  are  intolerable. 

Sir,  1  shall  be  asked,  why  I  do  not  choose  to  de- 
stroy those  offices  which  are  pensions,  and  appoint 
pensions  mider  the  direct  title  in  their  stead.    I  allow 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  833 

that  in  some  cases  it  leads  to  abuse,  to  have  things 
appointed  for  one  purpose  and  applied  to  another.  1 
have  no  great  objection  to  such  a  change  ;  but  I  do 
not  think  it  quite  prudent  for  me  to  propose  it.  If  I 
should  take  away  the  present  establishment,  the  bur- 
den of  proof  rests  upon  me,  that  so  many  pensions, 
and  no  more,  and  to  such  an  amount  each,  and  no 
more,  are  necessary  for  the  public  service.  This  is 
what  I  can  never  prove  ;  for  it  is  a  thing  incapable  of 
definition.  I  do  not  like  to  take  away  an  object  that 
I  think  answers  my  purpose,  in  hopes  of  getting  it 
back  again  in  a  better  shape.  People  will  bear  an  old 
establishment,  when  its  excess  is  corrected,  who  will 
revolt  at  a  new  one.  I  do  not  think  these  office- 
pensions  to  be  more  in  number  than  sufficient :  but  • 
on  that  point  the  House  will  exercise  its  discretion. 
As  to  abuse,  I  am  convinced  that  very  few  trusts  in 
the  ordinary  course  of  administration  have  admitted 
less  abuse  than  this.  Efficient  ministers  have  been 
their  own  paymasters,  it  is  true;  but  their  very  par- 
tiality has  operated  as  a  kind  of  justice,  and  still 
it  was  service  that  was  paid.  When  we  look  over 
this  Exchequer  list,  we  find  it  filled  with  tlie  descend- 
ants of  the  Walpoles,  of  the  Pelhams,  of  the  Towns- 
hends, — names  to  whom  this  country  owes  its  liber- 
tics,  and  to  whom  his  Majesty  owes  his  crown.  It  was 
in  one  of  these  lines  that  the  immense  and  envied  em- 
ployment he  now  holds  came  to  a  certain  duke,*  who 
is  now  probably  sitting  quietly  at  a  very  good  dinner 
directly  under  us,  and  acting  high  life  below  stairs, 
whilst  we,  his  masters,  arc  filling  our  moutlis  with 
unsu])stantial  sounds,  and  talking  of  hungry  economy 

*  Duke  of  Newcastle,  whose  dining-room  is  under  the  House  of 
Commons. 


334  SPEECH    ON    THE   PLAN 

over  his  head.  But  he  is  the  elder  branch  of  an  an- 
cient and  decayed  house,  joined  to  and  repaired  by 
tlie  reward  of  services  done  by  anotlier.  I  respect  tlie 
original  title,  and  the  first  purchase  of  merited  wealth 
and  honor  through  all  its  descents,  through  all  its 
transfers,  and  all  its  assignments.  May  such  foun- 
tains never  be  dried  up  !  May  they  ever  flow  with 
their  original  purity,  and  refresh  and  fructify  the 
commonwealth  for  ages ! 

Sir,  I  think  myself  bound  to  give  you  my  reasons 
as  clearly  and  as  fully  for  stopping  in  the  course  of 
reformation  as  for  proceeding  in  it.  My  limits  are 
the  rules  of  law,  the  rules  of  policy,  and  the  ser- 
vice of  the  state.  This  is  the  reason  why  I  am  not 
able  to  intermeddle  with  another  article,  which  seems 
to  be  a  specific  object  in  several  of  the  petitions :  I 
mean  the  reduction  of  exorbitant  emoluments  to  effi- 
cient offices.  If  I  knew  of  any  real  efficient  office 
which  did  possess  exorbitant  emoluments,  I  should 
be  extremely  desirous  of  reducing  them.  Others 
may  know  of  them :  I  do  not.  I  am  not  possessed 
of  an  exact  common  measure  between  real  service 
and  its  reward.  I  am  very  sure  that  states  do  some- 
times receive  services  which  is  hardly  in  their  power 
to  reward  according  to  their  worth.  If  I  were  to 
give  my  judgment  with  regard  to  this  country,  I  do 
not  think  the  great  efficient  offices  of  the  state  to 
be  overpaid.  The  service  of  the  public  is  a  thing 
which  cannot  be  put  to  auction  and  struck  down  to 
those  who  will  agree  to  execute  it  the  cheapest. 
When  the  proportion  between  reward  and  service  is 
our  object,  we  must  always  consider  of  what  nature 
the  service  is,  and  what  sort  of  men  they  are  that 
must  perform  it.     What  is  just  payment  for  one  kind 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  335 

of  labor,  and  full  encouragement  for  one  kind  of  tal- 
ents, is  fraud  and  discouragement  to  others.  Manj 
of  tlie  great  offices  have  much  duty  to  do,  and  much 
expense  of  representation  to  maintain.  A  Secretary 
of  State,  for  instance,  must  not  appear  sordid  in  the 
eyes  of  the  ministers  of  otlier  nations ;  neither  ought 
our  ministers  abroad  to  appear  contemptible  in  the 
courts  where  they  reside.  In  all  offices  of  duty, 
there  is  almost  necessarily  a  great  neglect  of  all 
domestic  affiiirs.  A  person  in  high  office  can  rarely 
take  a  view  of  his  family-house.  If  he  sees  that  the 
state  takes  no  detriment,  the  state  must  see  tliat  his 
affairs  should  take  as  little. 

I  will  even  go  so  far  as  to  affirm,  that,  if  men  were 
willing  to  serve  in  such  situations  without  salary, 
they  ought  not  to  be  permitted  to  do  it.  Ordinary 
service  must  be  secured  by  the  motives  to  ordinary 
integrity.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  that  state 
whicli  lays  its  foundation  in  rare  and  heroic  virtues 
will  be  sure  to  have  its  superstructure  in  the  basest 
profligacy  and  corruption.  An  honorable  and  fair 
profit  is  the  best  security  against  avarice  and  rapacity  ; 
as  in  all  things  else,  a  lawful  and  regulated  enjoyment 
is  the  best  security  against  debauchery  and  excess. 
For  as  wealth  is  power,  so  all  power  will  infallibly 
draw  wealth  to  itself  by  some  means  or  other ;  and 
when  men  are  left  no  way  of  ascertaining  their  profits 
but  by  their  means  of  obtaining  them,  those  means  will 
be  increased  to  infinity.  Tliis  is  true  in  all  the  parts 
of  administration,  as  well  as  in  the  whole.  If  any  in- 
dividual were  to  decline  his  appointments,  it  might 
give  an  unfair  advantage  to  ostentatious  ambition 
over  unpretending  service ;  it  might  breed  invidious 
comparisons ;  it  might  tend  to  destroy  whatever  little 


336  SPEECH   ON   THE   PLAN 

unity  and  agreement  may  be  found  among  ministers. 
And,  after  all,  when  an  ambitious  man  had  run  down 
his  competitors  by  a  fallacious  show  of  disinterested- 
ness, and  fixed  himself  in  power  by  that  means,  what 
security  is  there  that  he  would  not  change  his  course, 
and  claim  as  an  indemnity  ten  times  more  than  he 
has  given  up  ? 

This  rule,  like  every  other,  may  admit  its  excep- 
tions. When  a  great  man  has  some  one  great  object 
in  view  to  be  achieved  in  a  given  time,  it  may  be 
absolutely  necessary  for  him  to  walk  out  of  all  the 
common  roads,  and,  if  his  fortune  permits  it,  to  hold 
himself  out  as  a  splendid  example.  I  am  told  that 
something  of  this  kind  is  now  doing  in  a  country  near 
us.  But  this  is  for  a  short  race,  the  training  for  a 
heat  or  two,  and  not  the  proper  preparation  for  the 
regular  stages  of  a  methodical  journey.  I  am  speak- 
ing of  establishments,  and  not  of  men. 

It  may  be  expected.  Sir,  that,  when  I  am  giving  my 
reasons  why  I  limit  myself  in  the  reduction  of  employ- 
ments, or  of  their  profits,  I  should  say  something  of 
those  which  seem  of  eminent  inutility  in  the  state :  I 
mean  the  number  of  officers  who,  by  their  places,  are 
attendant  on  the  person  of  the  king.  Considering  the 
commonwealth  merely  as  such,  and  considering  those 
officers  only  as  relative  to  the  direct  purposes  of  the 
state,  I  admit  that  they  are  of  no  use  at  all.  But 
there  are  many  things  in  the  constitution  of  establish- 
ments, which  appear  of  little  value  on  the  first  view, 
which  in  a  secondary  and  oblique  manner  produce 
very  material  advantages.  It  was  on  full  considera- 
tion that  I  determined  not  to  lessen  any  of  the  offices 
of  honor  about  the  crown,  in  their  number  or  their 
emoluments.     These  emoluments,  except  in  one  or 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  337 

two  cases,  do  not  much  more  than  answer  the  charge 
of  attendance.  Men  of  condition  naturally  love  to  be 
about  a  court ;  and  women  of  condition  love  it  much 
more.  But  there  is  in  all  regular  attendance  so  much 
of  constraint,  that,  if  it  were  a  mere  charge,  without 
any  compensation,  you  would  soon  have  the  court 
deserted  by  all  the  nobility  of  the  kingdom. 

Sir,  the  most  serious  mischiefs  would  follow  from 
such  a  desertion.  Kings  are  naturally  lovers  of  low 
company.  They  are  so  elevated  above  all  the  rest  of 
mankind  that  they  must  look  upon  all  their  subject:: 
as  on  a  level.  They  are  ratlier  apt  to  hate  than  to 
love  their  nobility,  on  account  of  the  occasional  resist- 
ance to  their  will  which  will  be  made  by  their  virtue, 
their  petulance,  or  their  pride.  It  must,  indeed,  be 
admitted  that  many  of  the  nobility  are  as  perfectly 
willing  to  act  the  part  of  flatterers,  tale-bearers,  par- 
asites, pimps,  and  buffoons,  as  any  of  the  lowest  and 
vilest  of  mankind  can  possibly  be.  But  they  are  not 
properly  qualified  for  this  object  of  their  ambition. 
The  want  of  a  regular  education,  and  early  habits, 
and  some  lurking  remains  of  their  dignity,  will  never 
permit  them  to  become  a  match  for  an  Italian  eunuch, 
a  mountebank,  a  fiddler,  a  player,  or  any  regular  prac- 
titioner of  that  tribe.  The  Roman  emperors,  almost 
from  the  beginning,  threw  themselves  into  such  ha'nds  ; 
and  the  mischief  increased  every  day  till  the  decline 
and  final  ruin  of  the  empire.  It  is  therefore  of  very 
great  importance  (provided  the  thing  is  not  overdone) 
to  contrive  such  an  establishment  as  must,  almost 
whether  a  prince  will  or  not,  bring  into  daily  and 
hourly  offices  about  his  person  a  great  number  of  his 
first  nobility  ;  and  it  is  rather  an  useful  prejudice  that 
gives  them  a  pride  in  such  a  servitude.     Tiiougb  they 

VOL.  II.  22 


338  SPEECH    ON   THE   PLAN 

are  not  much  the  better  for  a  court,  a  court  will  be 
much  the  better  for  them.  I  have  therefore  "not  at- 
tempted to  reform  any  of  the  offices  of  honor  about 
the  king's  person. 

There  are,  indeed,  two  offices  in  his  stables  which 
are  sinecures  :  by  the  change  of  manners,  and  indeed 
by  the  nature  of  the  thing,  they  must  be  so  :  I  mean 
the  several  keepers  of  buck-hounds,  stag-liounds,  fox- 
hounds, and  harriers.  They  answer  no  purpose  of 
utility  or  of  splendor.  These  I  propose  to  abolish.  It 
is  not  proper  that  great  noblemen  should  be  keepers 
of  dogs,  though  they  were  the  king's  dogs. 

In  every  part  of  the  scheme,  I  have  endeavored  that 
no  primary,  and  that  even  no  secondary,  service  of  the 
state  should  suffer  by  its  frugality.  I  mean  to  touch 
no  offices  but  such  as  I  am  perfectly  sure  are  either  of 
no  use  at  all,  or  not  of  any  use  in  the  least  assignable 
proportion  to  the  burden  with  which  they  load  the  rev- 
eniies  of  the  kingdom,  and  to  the  influence  with  which 
they  oppress  the  freedom  of  Parliamentary  delibera- 
tion ;  for  which  reason  there  are  but  two  offices,  which 
are  properly  state  offices,  that  I  have  a  desire  to  re- 
form. 

The  first  of  them  is  the  new  office  of  Third  Secretary 
of  State,  which  is  commonly  called  Secretary  of  State 
for  the  Colonies. 

We  know  that  all  the  correspondence  of  the  colo- 
nies had  been,  until  within  a  few  years,  carried  on  by 
the  Southern  Secretary  of  State,  and  that  this  depart- 
ment has  not  been  shunned  upon  account  of  the  weight 
of  its  duties,  but,  on  the  contrary,  much  sought  on 
account  of  its  patronage.  Indeed,  he  must  be  poorly 
acquainted  witli  the  history  of  office  who  does  not 
know  how  very  lightly  the  American  functions  have 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  339 

always  leaned  on  the  shoulders  of  the  ministerial  Atr- 
las  who  has  upheld  that  side  of  the  sphere.  Undoubt- 
edly, great  temper  and  judgment  was  requisite  in  the 
management  of  the  colony  politics  ;  but  the  official 
detail  was  a  trifle.  Since  the  new  appointment,  a 
train  of  unfortunate  accidents  has  brought  before  us 
almost  the  whole  correspondence  of  this  favorite  sec- 
retary's office  since  the  first  day  of  its  establishment. 
I  will  say  nothing  of  its  auspicious  foundation,  of 
the  quality  of  its  correspondence,  or  of  the  effects 
that  have  ensued  from  it.  I  speak  merely  of  its  quan- 
tity, which  we  know  would  have  been  little  or  no 
addition  to  tho  trouble  of  whatever  office  had  its  hands 
the  fullest.  But  what  has  been  the  real  condition  of 
the  old  office  of  Secretary  of  State  ?  Have  their  vel- 
vet bags  and  their  red  boxes  been  so  full  that  noth- 
ing more  could  possibly  be  crammed  into  them  ? 

A  correspondence  of  a  curious  nature  has  been 
lately  published!*  In  that  correspondence.  Sir,  we 
find  the  opinion  of  a  noble  person  who  is  thought  to 
be  the  grand  manufacturer  of  administrations,  and 
therefore  the  best  judge  of  the  quality  of  his  work. 
He  was  of  opinion  that  there  was  but  one  man  of  dil- 
igence and  industry  in  the  whole  administration:  ft 
was  the  late  Earl  of  Suffolk.  The  noble  lord  lamented 
very  justly,  that  this  statesman,  of  so  much  mental 
vigor,  was  almost  wholly  disabled  from  the  exertion 
of  it  by  his  bodily  infirmities.  Lord  Suffolk,  dead 
to  the  state  long  before  he  was  dead  to  Nature,  at 
last  paid  his  tribute  to  the  common  treasury  to  wliich 
we  must  all  be  taxed.  But  so  little  want  was  found 
even  of  his  intentional  industry,  that  the  office,  vacant 
in  reality  to  its  duties  long  before,  continued  vacant 

*  Letters  between  Dr.  Addin<rton  and  Sir  Jaiucs  Wright. 


'64:0  SPEECH    ON    THE   PLAN 

even  in  nomination  and  appointment  for  a  year  after 
his  death.  The  whole  of  the  lahorious  and  arduous 
correspondence  of  this  empire  rested  solely  upon  the 
activity  and  energy  of  Lord  Weymouth. 

It  is  therefore  demonstrable,  since  one  diligent  man 
was  fully  equal  to  the  duties  of  the  two  offices,  that 
two  diligent  men  will  be  equal  to  the  duty  of  three. 
The  business  of  the  new  office,  which  I  shall  propose 
to  you  to  suppress,  is  by  no  means  too  much  to  be 
returned  to  either  of  the  secretaries  which  remain. 
If  this  dust  in  the  balance  should  be  thought  too 
heavy,  it  may  be  divided  between  them  both, — North 
America  (whether  free  or  reduced)  to  the  Northern 
Secretary,  the  West  Indies  to  the  Southern.  It  is  not 
necessary  that  I  should  say  more  upon  the  inutility 
of  this  office.  It  is  burning  daylight.  But  before  I 
have  done,  I  shall  just  remark  that  the  history  of  this 
office  is  too  recent  to  suffijr  us  to  forget  that  it  was 
made  for  the  mere  convenience  of  the  arrangements 
of  political  intrigue,  and  not  for  the  service  of  the 
state,  —  that  it  was  made  in  order  to  give  a  color  to 
an  exorbitant  increase  of  the  civil  list,  and  in  the 
same  act  to  bring  a  new  accession  to  the  loaded  com- 
post-heap of  corrupt  influence. 

There  is.  Sir,  another  office  which  was  not  long 
since  closely  connected  with  this  of  the  American  Sec- 
retary, but  has  been  lately  separated  from  it  for  the 
very  same  purpose  for  which  it  had  been  conjoined : 
I  mean  the  sole  purpose  of  all  the  separations  and  all 
the  conjunctions  that  have  been  lately  made,  —  a  job. 
I  speak,  Sir,  of  the  Board  of  Trade  and  Plantations. 
This  board  is  a  sort  of  temperate  bed  of  influence,  a 
sort  of  gently  ripening  hothouse,  where  eight  mem- 
bers of  Parliament  receive  salaries  of  a  thousand  a 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM,  341 

year  for  a  certain  given  time,  in  order  to  mature,  at 
a  i^roper  season,  a  claim  to  two  thousand,  granted  for 
doing  less,  and  on  the  credit  of  having  toiled  so  long 
in  that  inferior,  laborious  department. 

I  have  known  that  board,  off  and  on,  for  a  great 
number  of  years.  Both  of  its  pretended  objects  have 
been  much  the  objects  of  my  study,  if  I  have  a  right 
to  call  any  pursuits  of  mine  by  so  respectable  a  name. 
I  can  assure  the  House,  (and  I  hope  they  will  not 
think  that  I  risk  my  little  credit  lightly,)  that,  without 
meaning  to  convey  the  least  reflection  upon  any  one 
of  its  members,  past  or  present,  it  is  a  board  which, 
if  not  mischievous,  is  of  no  use  at  all. 

You  will  be  convinced,  Sir,  that  I  am  not  mistaken, 
if  you  reflect  how  generally  it  is  true,  that  commerce, 
the  principal  object  of  that  office,  flourishes  most 
when  it  is  left  to  itself.  Interest,  the  great  guide  of 
commerce,  is  not  a  blind  one.  It  is  very  well  able  to 
find  its  own  way  ;  and  its  necessities  are  its  best  laws. 
But  if  it  were  possible,  in  the  nature  of  things,  that 
the  young  should  direct  the  old,  and  the  inexperienced 
instruct  the  knowing,  —  if  a  board  in  the  state  was  the 
best  tutor  for  the  counting-house,  —  if  the  desk  ought 
to  read  lectures  to  the  anvil,  and  the  pen  to  usurp  the 
place  of  the  shuttle, — yet  in  any  matter  of  regulation 
we  know  that  board  must  act  with  as  little  authority 
as  skill.  The  prerogative  of  the  crown  is  utterly  inad- 
equate to  the  object ;  because  all  regulations  are,  in 
their  nature,  restrictive  of  some  liberty.  In  tlie  reign, 
indeed,  of  Charles  the  First,  the  Council,  or  Commit- 
tees of  Council,  were  never  a  moment  unoccupied  with 
affairs  of  trade.  But  even  where  they  had  no  ill  in- 
tention, (which  was  sometimes  the  case,)  ti-ade  and 
manufacture  suffered  infinitely  from  their  injudicious 


342  SPEECH    ON    THE    PLAN 


tampering.  But  since  that  period,  whenever  regu- 
lation is  wanting,  (for  I  do  not  deny  that  sometimes 
it  may  be  wanting,)  Parliament  constantly  sits  ;  and 
Parliament  alone  is  competent  to  such  regulation. 
"We  want  no  instruction  from  boards  of  trade,  or 
from  any  other  board ;  aiid  God  forbid  we  should  give 
the  least  attention  to  their  reports  !  Parliamentary 
inquiry  is  the  only  mode  of  obtaining  Parliamentary 
information.  There  is  more  real  knowledge  to  be  ob- 
tained by  attending  the  detail  of  business  in  the  com- 
mittees above  stairs  than  ever  did  come,  or  ever  will 
come,  from  any  board  in  this  kingdom,  or  from  all  of 
them  together.  An  assiduous  member  of  Parliament 
will  not  be  the  worse  instructed  there  for  not  being 
paid  a  thousand  a  year  for  learning  his  lesson.  And 
now  that  I  speak  of  the  committees  above  stairs,  I 
must  say,  that,  having  till  lately  attended  them  a  good 
deal,  I  have  observed  that  no  description  of  members 
give  so  little  attendance,  either  to  communicate  or  to 
obtain  instruction  upon  matters  of  commerce,  as  the 
honorable  members  of  the  grave  Board  of  Trade.  I 
really  do  not  recollect  that  I  have  ever  seen,  one  of 
them  in  that  sort  of  business.  Possibly  some  mem- 
bers may  have  better  memories,  and  may  call  to 
mind  some  job  that  may  have  accidentally  brought 
one  or  other  of  them,  at  one  time  or  other,  to  attend 
a  matter  of  commerce. 

This  board.  Sir,  has  had  both  its  original  formation 
and  its  regeneration  in  a  job.  In  a  job  it  was  con- 
ceived, and  in  a  job  its  mother  brought  it  forth.  It 
made  one  among  those  showy  and  specious  impoFi- 
tions  which  one  of  the  experiment-making  adminis- 
trations of  Charles  the  Second  held  out  to  delude  the 
people,  and  to  be  substituted  in  the  place  of  the  real 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  343 

service  wliich  tliej  might  expect  from  a  Parliament 
anmially  sitting.  It  was  intended,  also,  to  corrupt 
that  body,  whenever  it  should  be  permitted  to  sit.  It 
was  projected  in  the  year  1GG8,  and  it  continued  in 
a  tottering  and  rickety  childhood  for  about  three  or 
four  years  :  for  it  died  in  the  year  1073,  a  babe  of  as 
little  hopes  as  ever  swelled  the  bills  of  mortality  in 
the  article  of  convulsed  or  overlaid  children  who  have 
hardly  stepped  over  the  threshold  of  life. 

It  was  buried  with  little  ceremony,  and  never  more 
thought  of  until  the  reign  of  King  William,  when,  in 
the  strange  vicissitude  of  neglect  and  vigor,  of  good 
and  ill  success  that  attended  his  wars,  in  the  year 
1695,  the  trade  was  distressed  beyond  all  example  of 
former  sufferings  by  the  piracies  of  the  French  cruis- 
ers. This  suffering  incensed,  and,  as  it  should  seemi, 
very  justly  incensed,  the  House  of  Commons.  In  this 
ferment,  they  struck,  not  only  at  the  administration, 
but  at  the  very  constitution  of  the  executive  govern- 
ment. Tliey  attempted  to  form  in  Parliament  a  board 
for  the  protection  of  trade,  which,  as  they  planned  it, 
was. to  draw  to  itself  a  great  part,  if  not. the  whole,  of 
the  functions  and  powers  both  of  the  Admiralty  and 
of  the  Treasury ;  and  thus,  by  a  Parliamentary  dele- 
gation of  office  and  officers,  they  threatened  absolutely 
to  separate  these  departments  from  the  whole  system 
of  the  executive  government,  and  of  course  to  vest 
the  most  leading  and  essential  of  its  attributes  in  this 
board.  As  the  executive  government  was  in  a  man- 
ner convicted  of  a  dereliction  of  its  functions,  it  was 
with  infinite  difficulty  that  this  blow  was  warded  off 
in  that  session.  There  was  a  threat  to  renew  the 
same  attempt  in  the  next.  To  prevent  the  effect  of 
this  manoeuvre,  the  court  opposed  another  manoeuvre 


C4-i  SPEECU    ox    Til 'J    PLAN 

to  it,  and,  in  the  year  1G93,  called   into  life  this 
Board  of  Trade,  which  had  slept  since  1673. 

This,  in  a  few  words,  is  the  history  of  the  regenera- 
tion of  the  Board  of  Trade.  It  has  perfectly  answered 
its  purposes.  It  was  intended  to  quiet  the  muids  of 
the  people,  and  to  compose  the  ferment  that  was  then 
strongly  working  in  Parliament.  The  courtiers  were 
too  happy  to  be  able  to  substitute  a  board  which  they 
knew  would  be  useless  in  the  place  of  one  that  they 
feared  would  be  dangerous.  Thus  the  Board  of  Trade 
was  reproduced  in  a  job  ;  and  perhaps  it  is  the  only 
instance  of  a  public  body  which  has  never  degener- 
ated, but  to  this  hour  preserves  all  the  health  and 
vigor  of  its  primitive  institution. 

This  Board  of  Trade  and  Plantations  has  not  been 
of  any  use  to  the  colonies,  as  colonies :  so  little  of 
use,  that  the  flourishing  settlements  of  New  England, 
of  Virginia,  and  of  Maryland,  and  all  our  wealthy 
colonies  in  the  West  Indies,  were  of  a  date  prior  to 
the  first  board  of  Charles  the  Second.  Pennsylvania 
and  Carolina  were  settled  during  its  dark  quarter,  in 
the  interval  between  the  extinction  of  the  first  and  the 
formation  of  the  second  board.  Two  colonies  alone 
owe  their  origin  to  that  board.  Georgia,  which,  till 
lately,  has  made  a  very  slow  progress,  —  and  never  did 
make  any  progress  at  all,  until  it  had  wholly  got  rid 
of  all  the  regulations  which  the  Board  of  Trade  iiad 
moulded  into  its  orighial  constitution.  That  colony 
has  cost  the  nation  very  great  sums  of  money ;  where- 
as the  colonies  which  have  had  the  fortune  of  not 
being  godfathered  by  the  Board  of  Trade  never  cost 
the  nation  a  shilling,  except  what  has  been  so  prop- 
erly spent  in  losing  them..  But  the  colony  of  Geor- 
gia, weak  as  it.  was,  carried  with  it  to  the  last  hour, 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  EEFORM.  345 

and  carries,  even  in  its  present  dead,  pallid  visage, 
the  perfect  resemblance  of  its  parents.  It  always  had, 
and  it  now  has,  an  estahlisJwient,  paid  by  the  public  of 
England,  for  the  sake  of  the  influence  of  the  crown  : 
that  colony  having  never  been  able  or  willing  to  take 
upon  itself  the  expense  of  its  proper  government  or 
its  own  appropriated  jobs. 

The  province  of  Nova  Scotia  was  the  youngest  and 
the  favorite  child  of  the  Board.  Good  God !  what 
sums  the  nursing  of  that  ill-thriven,  hard-visagcd, 
and  ill-favored  brat  has  cost  to  this  wittol  nation ! 
Sir,  this  colony  has  stood  us  in  a  sum  of  not  less  than 
seven  hundred  thousand  pounds.  To  this  day  it  has 
made  no  repayment,  —  it  does  not  even  support  those 
offices  of  expense  which  are  miscalled  its  govern- 
ment ;  the  whole  of  that  job  still  lies  upon  the  pa- 
tient, callous  shoulders  of  the  people  of  England. 

Sir,  I  am  going  to  state  a  fact  to  you  that  will 
serve  to  set  in  full  sunshine  the  real  value  of  for- 
mality and  official  superintendence.  There  was  in 
the  province  of  Nova  Scotia  one  little  neglected  cor- 
ner, the  country  of  the  neutral  French;  which,  hav- 
ing tlie  good-fortune  to  escape  the  fostering  care  of 
both  Franco  and  England,  and  to  have  been  shut  out 
from  the  protection  and  regulation  of  councils  of 
connncrce  and  of  boards  of  trade,  did,  in  silence, 
without  notice,  and  without  assistance,  increase  to 
a  considerable  degree.  But  it  seems  our  nation  had 
more  skill  and  ability  in  destroying  than  in  settling 
a  colony.  In  the  last  war,  we  did,  in  my  opinion, 
most  inluimaidy,  and  upon  pretences  that  in  the  eye 
of  an  honest  man  are  not  worth  a  farthing,  root  out 
this  poor,  innocent,  deserving  peo])lc,  whom  our  utter 
inability  to  govern,  or  to  reconcile,  gave  us  no  sort 


346  SPEECH   ON   THE  PLAN 

of  right  to  extirpate.  Whatever  the  merits  of  that 
extirpation  might  have  been,  it  was-  on  the  footsteps 
of  a  neglected  people,  it  was  on  the  fund  of  uncon- 
strained poverty,  it  was  on  the  acquisitions  of  unreg- 
ulated industry,  that  anything  which  deserves  the 
name  of  a  colony  in  that  province  has  been  formed. 
It  has  been  formed  by  overflowings  from  the  exuber- 
ant population  of  New  England,  and  by  emigration 
from  other  parts  of  Nova  Scotia  of  fugitives  from  the 
protection  of  the  Board  of  Trade. 

But  if  all  of  these  things  were  not  more  than  suffi- 
cient to  prove  to  you  the  inutility  of  that  expensive 
establishment,  I  would  desire  you  to  recollect.  Sir, 
that  those  who  may  be  very  ready  to  defend  it  are 
very  cautious  how  they  employ  it,  —  cautious  how 
they  employ  it  even  in  appearance  and  pretence. 
They  are  afraid  they  should  lose  the  benefit  of  its 
influence  in  Parliament,  if  they  seemed  to  keep  it  up 
for  any  other  purpose.  If  ever  there  were  commer- 
cial points  of  great  weight,  and  most  closely  con- 
nected with  our  dependencies,  they  are  those  which 
have  been  agitated  and  decided  in  Parliament  since  I 
came  into  it.  Which  of  the  innumerable  regulations 
since  made  had  their 'origin  or  their  improvement  in 
the  Board  of  Trade  ?  Did  any  of  the  several  East 
India  bills  which  have  been  successively  produced 
since  1767  originate  there  ?  Did  any  one  dream  of 
referring  them,  or  any  part  of  them,  thither  ?  Was 
anybody  so  ridiculous  as  even  to  think  of  it  ?  If  ever 
there  was  an  occasion  on  which  the  Board  was  fit  to 
be  consulted,  it  was  with  regard  to  the  acts  that  were 
preludes  to  the  American  war,  or  attendant  on  its 
commencement.  Tliose  acts  were  full  of  commercial 
regulations,  such  as  they  were  :  the  Intercourse  Bill ; 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  S47 

the  Proliibitory  Bill ;  ^tlie  Fishery  Bill.  If  the  Board 
was  not  concerned  in  such  things,  in  what  particular 
was  it  thought  fit  that  it  should  be  concerned  ?  In 
the  course  of  all  these  bills  through  the  House,  I  ob- 
served the  members  of  that  board  to  be  remarkably 
cautious  of  intermeddling.  They  understood  decorum 
better  ;  they  know  that  matters  of  trade  and  planta- 
tions are  no  business  of  theirs. 

There  were  two  very  recent  occasions,  which,  if  the 
idea  of  any  use  for  the  Board  had  not  been  extin- 
guished by  prescription,  appeared  loudly  to  call  for 
their  interference. 

When  commissioners  were  sent  to  pay  his  Maj- 
esty's and  our  dutiful  respects  to  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States,  a  part  of  their  powers  under  the 
commission  were,  it  seems,  of  a  commercial  nature. 
They  were  authorized,  in  the  most  ample  and  un- 
defined manner,  to  form  a  commercial  treaty  with 
America  on  the  spot.  This  was  no  trivial  object.  As 
the  formation  of  such  a  treaty  would  necessarily  have 
been  no  less  than  the  breaking  up  of  our  whole  com- 
mercial system,  and  the  giving  it  an  entire  new 
form,  one  would  imagine  that  the  Board  of  Trade 
would  have  sat  day  and  night  to  model  propositions, 
which,  on  our  side,  might  serve  as  a  basis  to  that 
treaty.  No  such  thing.  Their  learned  leisure  was 
not  in  the  least  interrupted,  though  one  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Board  was  a  commissioner,  and  might,  in 
mere  compliment  to  his  office,  have  been  supposed  to 
make  a  show  of  deliberation  on  the  subject.  But  he 
knew  that  his  colleagues  would  have  thought  he 
laughed  in  their  faces,  had  he  attempted  to  bring 
anything  the  most  distantly  relating  to  commerce  or 
colonies  before  them.     A  noble  person,  engaged  in 


348  SPEECH    ON    THE   PLAN 

the  same  commission,  and  sent, to  learn  liis  commer- 
cial rudiments  in  New  York,  (then  under  the  opera- 
tion of  an  act  for  the  universal  prohibition  of  trade,) 
was  soon  after  put  at  the  head  of  that  board.  This 
contempt  from  the  present  ministers  of  all  the  pre- 
tended functions  of  that  board,  and  their  manner  of 
breathing  into  its  very  soul,  of  inspiring  it  with  its 
animating  and  presiding  principle,  puts  an  end  to  all 
dispute  concerning  their  opinion  of  the  clay  it  was 
made  of.     But  I  will  give  them  heaped  measure. 

It  was  but  the  other  day,  that  the  noble  lord  in 
the  blue  ribbon  carried  up  to  the  House  of  Peers  two 
acts,  altering,  I  think  much  for  the  better,  but  alter- 
ing in  a  great  degree,  our  whole  commercial  system : 
those  acts,  I  mean,  for  giving  a  free  trade  to  Ireland 
in  woollens,  and  in  air  things  else,  with  independent 
nations,  and  giving  them  an  equal  trade  to  our  own 
colonies.  Here,  too,  the  novelty  of  this  great,  but 
arduous  and  critical  improvement  of  system,  would 
make  you  conceive  that  the  anxious  solicitude  of  the 
noble  lord  in  the  blue  ribbon  would  have  wholly 
destroyed  the  plan  of  summer  recreation  of  that 
board,  by  references  to  examine,  compare,  and  digest 
matters  for  Parliament.  You  would  imagine  tliat 
Irish  commissioners  of  customs,  and  English  com- 
missioners of  customs,  and  commissioners  of  excise, 
that  merchants  and  manufacturers  of  every  denomi- 
nation, had  daily  crowded  their  outer  rooms.  Nil 
horum.  The  perpetual  virtual  adjournment,  and  the 
unbroken  sitting  vacation  of  that  board,  was  no  more 
disturbed  by  the  Irish  than  by  the  plantation  com- 
merce, or  any  other  commerce.  The  same  matter 
made  a  large  part  of  the  business  which  occupied  the 
House  for  two  sessions  before ;  and  as  our  ministers 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  349 

were  not  then  mellowed  by  the  mild,  emollient,  and 
cno-aorinf!:  blandishments  of  onr  dear  sister  into  all 
the  tenderness  of  unqualified  surrender,  the  bounds 
and  limits  of  a  restrained  benefit  naturally  required 
much  detailed  management  and  positive  regulation. 
But  neither  the  qualified  propositions  which  were 
received,  nor  those  other  qualified  propositions  which 
were  rejected  by  ministers,  were  the  least  concern  of 
theirs,  or  were  they  ever  thought  of  in  the  business. 

It  is  therefore,  Sir,  on  the  opinion  of  Parliament, 
on  the  opinion  of  the  ministers,  and  oven  on  their 
own  opinion  of  their  inutility,  that  I  shall  propose  to 
you  to  suppress  the  Board  of  Trade  and  Plantations, 
and  to  recommit  all  its  business  to  the  Council,  from 
whence  it  was  very  improvidently  taken ;  and  which 
business  (whatever  it  might  be)  was  much  better 
done,  and  without  any  expense ;  and,  indeed,  where 
in  effect  it  may  all  come  at  last.  Almost  all  that  de- 
serves the  name  of  business  there  is  the  reference  of 
the  plantation  acts  to  the  opinion  of  gentlemen  of  the 
law.  But  all  this  may  be  done,  as  the  Irish  business 
of  the  same  nature  has  always  been  done,  by  the 
Council,  and  with  a  reference  to  the  Attorney  and 
Solicitor  General. 

There  are  some  regulations  in  the  household,  rela- 
tive to  the  officers  of  the  yeomen  of  the  guards,  and 
the  officers  and  band  of  gentlemen  pensioners,  which 
I  shall  likewise  submit  to  your  consideration,  for  the 
purpose  of  regulating  establishments  which  at  pres- 
ent are  much  abused. 

I  have  now  finished  all  that  for  the  present  I  shall 
trouble  you  with  on  the  plan  of  reduction.  I  mean 
next  to  propose  to  you  the  plan  of  arrangement,  by 
which  I  mean   to  appropriate  and  fix  the  civil  list 


850  SPEECH    ON    THE   PLAN 

money  to  its  several  services  according  to  tlieir  na- 
ture :  for  I  am  thoroughly  sensible,  that,  if  a  discre- 
tion wholly  arbitrary  can  be  exercised  over  the  civil 
list  revenue,  although  the  most  effectual  methods 
may  be  taken  to  prevent  the  inferior  departments 
from  exceeding  their  bounds,  the  plan  of  reformation 
will  still  be  left  very  imperfect.  It  will  not,  in  my 
opinion,  be  safe  to  permit  an  entirely  arbitrary  dis- 
cretion even  in  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  him- 
self; it  will  not  be  safe  to  leave  with  him  a  power  of 
diverting  the  public  money  from  its  proper  objects,  of 
paying  it  in  an  irregular  course,  or  of  inverting  per- 
haps the  order  of  time,  dictated  by  the  proportion  of 
value,  which  ought  to  regulate  his  application  of  pay- 
ment to  service. 

I  am  sensible,  too,  that  the  very  operation  of  a  plan 
of  economy  which  tends  to  exonerate  the  civil  list  of 
expensive  establishments  may  in  some  sort  defeat  the 
capital  end  we  have  in  view,  —  the  independence  of 
Parliament ;  and  that,  in  removing  the  public  and 
ostensible  means  of  influence,  we  may  increase  the 
fund  of  private  corruption.  I  have  thought  of  some 
methods  to  prevent  an  abuse  of  surplus  cash  under 
discretionary  application,  —  I  mean  the  heads  of  secret 
service,  special  service,  various  payments,  and  the  like,  — 
which  I  hope  will  answer,  and  which  in  due  time  I 
shall  lay  before  you.  Where  I  am  unable  to  limit 
the  quantity  of  the  sums  to  be  applied,  by  reason  of 
the  uncertain  quantity  of  the  service,  I  endeavor  to 
confine  it  to  its  line,  to  secure  an  indefinite  applica- 
tion to  the  definite  service  to  which  it  belongs,  —  not 
to  stop  the  progress  of  expense  in  its  line,  but  to  con- 
fine it  to  that  line  in  which  it  professes  to  move. 

But  that  part  of  my  plan,  Sir,  iipon  which  I  prin- 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  EEFORM.  351 

cipally  rest,  that  on  which  I  rely  for  the  purpose  of 
binding  up  and  securing  the  whole,  is  to  establish  a 
fixed  and  invariable  order  in  all  its  payments,  which  it 
shall  not  be  permitted  to  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treas- 
ury, upon  any  pretence  whatsoever,  to  depart  from. 
I  therefore  divide  the  civil  list  payments  into  7iine 
classes,  putting  each  class  forward  according  to  the 
importance  or  justice  of  the  demand,  and  to  the  ina- 
bility of  the  persons  entitled  to  enforce  their  preten- 
sions :  that  is,  to  put  those  first  who  have  the  most 
efficient  offices,  or  claim  the  justest  debts,  and  at  the 
same  time,  from  the  character  of  that  description  of 
men,  from  the  retireduess  or  the  remoteness  of  their 
situation,  or  from  their  want  of  weight  and  power  to 
enforce  their  pretensions,  or  from  their  being  enth-ely 
subject  to  the  power  of  a  minister,  without  any  recip- 
rocal power  of  awing,  ought  to  be  the  most  considered, 
and  are  the  most  likely  to  be  neglected,  —  all  these  I 
place  in  the  bighest  classes ;  I  place  in  the  lowest 
those  whose  functions  are  of  the  least  importance,  but 
whose  persons  or  rank  are  often  of  the  greatest  power 
and  influence. 

In  the  first  class  I  place  the  judges,  as  of  the  first 
importance.  It  is  the  public  justice  that  holds  the 
community  together ;  the  ease,  therefore,  and  inde- 
pendence of  the  judges  ought  to  supersede  all  other 
considerations,  and  they  ought  to  be  the  very  last  to 
feel  the  necessities  of  the  state,  or  to  be  obliged  either 
to  court  or  bully  a  minister  for  their  right ;  they  ought 
to  be  as  weak  solicitors  on  their  oivn  demands  as  stren- 
uous assertors  of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  others. 
The  judges  are,  or  ought  to  be,  of  a  reserved  and  re- 
tired character,  and  wholly  unconnected  with  the 
political  world. 


352  SPEECH    ON   THE   PLAN  ' 

In  the  second  class  I  place  the  foreign  ministers. 
The  judges  are  the  links  of  our  connections  with  one 
anotlier ;  the  foreign  ministers  are  the  Finks  of  our 
connection  with  other  nations.  They  are  not  upon 
the  spot  to  demand  payment,  and  are  therefore  the 
most  likely  to  he,  as  in  fact  they  have  sometimes  been, 
entirely  neglected,  to  the  great  disgrace  and  perhaps 
the  great  detriment  of  the  nation. 

In  the  third  class  I  would  bring  all  the  tradesmen 
who  supply  the  crown  by  contract  or  otherwise. 

In  the  fourth  class  I  place  all  the  domestic  ser- 
vants of  the  king,  and  all  persons  in  efficient  offices 
whose  salaries  do  not  exceed  two  hundred  pounds  a 
year. 

In  the  fifth,  upon  account  of  honor,  which  ought  to 
give  place  to  nothing  but  charity  and  rigid  justice,  I 
would  place  the  pensions  and  allowances  of  his  Maj- 
esty's royal  family,  comprehending  of  course  the 
queen,  together  with  the  stated  allowance  of  the 
privy  purse. 

In  the  sixth  class  I  place  those  efficient  offices  of 
duty  whose  salaries  may  exceed  the  sum  of  two  hun- 
dred pounds  a  year. 

In  the  seventh  class,  that  mixed  mass,  the  whole 
pension  list. 

In  the  eighth,  the  offices  of  honor  about  the  king. 

In  the  ninth,  and  the  last  of  all,  the  salaries  and 
pensions  of  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  himself, 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  and  the  otlier  Com- 
missioners of  the  Treasury, 

If,  by  any  possible  mismanagement  of  that  part 
of  the  revenue  which  is  left  at  discretion,  or  by  any 
other  mode  of  prodigality,  cash  should  be  deficient  for 
the  payment  of  the  lowest  classes,  I  propose  that  the 


FUR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  353 

amount  of  those  salaries  where  the  deficiency  may 
happen  to  fall  shall  not  be  carried  as  debt  to  the  ac- 
count of  the  succeeding  year,  but  that  it  shall  be  en- 
tirely lapsed,  sunk,  and  lost ;  so  that  government  will 
be  enabled  to  start  in  the  race  of  every  new  year 
wholly  unloaded,  fresh  in  wind  and  in  vigor.  Here- 
after no  civil  list  debt  can  ever  come  upon  the  public. 
And  those  who  do  not  consider  this  as  saving,  because 
it  is  not  a  certain  sum,  do  not  ground  their  calcula- 
tions of  the  future  on  their  experience  of  the  past. 

I  know  of  no  mode  of  preserving  the  effectual  exe- 
cution of  any  duty,  but  to  make  it  the  direct  interest 
of  the  executive  officer  that  it  shall  be  faithfully  per- 
formed. Assuming,  then,  that  the  present  vast  allow- 
ance to  the  civil  list  is  perfectly  adequate  to  all  its 
purposes,  if  there  should  be  any  failure,  it  must  be 
from  the  mismanagement  or  neglect  of  the  First  Com- 
missioner of  the  Treasury  ;  since,  upon  the  proposed 
plan,  there  can  be  no  expense  of  any  consequence 
which  he  is  not  himself  previously  to  authorize  and 
finally  to  control.  It  is  therefore  just,  as  well  as 
politic,  that  the  loss  should  attach  upon  the  delin- 
quency. 

If  the  failure  from  the  delinquency  should  be  very 
considerable,  it  will  fall  on  the  class  directly  above 
the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  as  well  as  upon  himself 
and  his  board.  It  will  fall,  as  it  ought  to  fall,  upon 
offices  of  no  primary  importance  in  the  state  ;  but 
then  it  will  fall  upon  persons  whom  it  will  be  a  mat- 
ter of  no  slight  importance  for  a  minister  to  provoke : 
it  will  fall  upon  persons  of  the  first  rank  and  con- 
sequence in  the  k'mgdom,  —  upon  those  who  are  near- 
est to  the  king,  and  frequently  have  a  more  interior 
credit  with  him  than  the  minister  himself.     It  will 

VOL.  II.  23 


354  SPEECH   ON  THE  PLAN 

fall  upon  masters  of  the  horse,  upon  lord  chamber- 
lains, upon  lord  stewards,  upon  grooms  of  the  stole, 
and  lords  of  the  bedchamber.  The  household  troops 
form  an  army,  who  will  be  ready  to  mutiny  for  want 
of  pay,  and  whose  mutiny  will  be  really  dreadful  to  a 
commander-in-chief.  A  rebellion  of  the  thirteen  lords 
of  the  bedchamber  would  be  far  more  terrible  to  a 
minister,  and  would  probably  affect  his  power  more 
to  the  qiiick,  than  a  revolt  of  thirteen  colonies.  What 
an  uproar  such  an  event  would  create  at  court !  What 
petitioris,  and  committees,  and  associations,  would  it  not 
produce  !  Bless  me  !  what  a  clattering  of  white  sticks 
and  yellow  sticks  would  be  about  his  head !  what  a 
storm  of  gold  keys  would  fly  about  the  ears  of  the  min- 
ister! what  a  shower  of  Georges,  and  thistles,  and 
medals,  and  collars  of  S.  S.  would  assail  him  at  his 
first  entrance  into  the  antechamber,  after  an  insol- 
vent Christmas  quarter  !  —  a  tumult  which  could  not 
be  appeased  by  all  the  harmony  of  the  new  year's  ode. 
Rebellion  it  is  certain  there  would  be  ;  and  rebellion 
may  not  now,  indeed,  be  so  critical  an  event  to  those 
who  engage  in  it,  since  its  price  is  so  correctly  ascer- 
tained at  just  a  thousand  pound. 

Sir,  this  classing,  in  my  opinion,  is  a  serious  and 
solid  security  for  the  performance  of  a  minister's 
duty.  Lord  Coke  says,  that  the  staff  was  put  into  the 
Treasurer's  hand  to  enable  him  to  support  himself 
when  there  was  no  money  in  the  Exchequer,  and  to 
beat  away  importunate  solicitors.  The  method  which 
T  propose  would  hinder  him  from  the  necessity  of 
such  a  broken  staff  to  lean  on,  or  such  a  miserable 
weapon  for  repulsing  the  demands  of  worthless  suit- 
ors, who,  the  noble  lord  in  the  blue  ril)bon  knows,  will 
bear  many  hard  blows  on  the  head,  and  many  otlier 


FOB  ECONOMICAL  EEFORM.  355 

indignities,  before  tliey  are  driven  from  the  Treasury. 
In  this  plan,  he  is  furnished  with  an  answer  to  all 
their  importunity,  —  an  answer  far  more  conclusive 
than  if  he  had  knocked  them  down  with  his  stalT:  — 
"  Sir,  (or  my  Lord,)  you  are  calling  for  my  own  sal- 
ary, —  Sir,  you  are  calling  for  the  appointments  of  my 
colleagues  who  sit  about  me  in  office,  —  Sir,  you  are 
going  to  excite  a  mutiny  at  court  against  me,  —  you 
are  going  to  estrange  his  Majesty's  confidence  from 
me,  through  the  chamberlain,  or  the  master  of  the 
horse,  or  the  groom  of  the  stole." 

As  things  now  stand,  every  man,  in  proportion  to 
his  consequence  at  court,  tends  to  add  to  the  expenses 
of  the  civil  list,  by  all  manner  of  jobs,  if  not  for  him- 
self, yet  for  his  dependants.  When  the  new  plan  is 
established,  those  who  are  now  suitors  for  jobs  will 
become  the  most  strenuous  opposers  of  them.  They 
will  have  a  common  interest  with  the  minister  in  pub- 
lic economy.  Every  class,  as  it  stands  low,  will  be- 
come security  for  the  payment  of  the  preceding  class ; 
and  thus  the  persons  whose  insignificant  services 
defraud  those  that  are  useful  would  then  become 
interested  in  their  payment.  Then  the  powerful, 
instead  of  oppressing,  would  be  obliged  to  support 
the  weak ;  and  idleness  would  become  concerned  in 
the  reward  of  industry.  The  whole  fabric  of  the  civil 
economy  would  become  compact  and  connected  in  all 
its  parts ;  it  would  be  formed  into  a  well-organized 
body,  where  every  member  contributes  to  the  support 
of  the  whole,  and  where  even  the  lazy  stomacii  se- 
cures the  vigor  of  the  active  arm. 

This  plan,  I  really  flatter  myself,  is  laid,  not  in  offi- 
cial formality,  nor  in  airy  speculation,  but  in  real  life, 
and  in  human  nature,  in  what  "  comes  home  "  (as 


356  SPEECH   ON   THE  PLAN 

Bacon  says)  "  to  the  business  and  bosoms  of  men." 
You  have  now,  Sir,  before  you,  the  whole  of  my 
scheme,  as  far  as  I  have  digested  it  into  a  form  that 
might  be  in  any  respect  worthy  of  your  considera- 
tion. I  intend  to  lay  it  before  you  in  five  bills.* 
The  plan  consists,  indeed,  of  many  parts  ;  but  they 
stand  upon  a  few  plain  principles.  It  is  a  plan  which 
takes  nothing  from  the  civil  list  without  discharging 
it  of  a  burden  equal  to  the  sum  carried  to  the  public 
service.  It  weakens  no  one  function  necessary  to 
government ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  by  appropriating 
supply  to  service,  it  gives  it  greater  vigor.  It  pro- 
vides the  means  of  order  and  foresight  to  a  minister 
of  finance,  which  may  always  keep  all  the  objects  of 
his  office,  and  their  state,  condition,  and  relations, 
distinctly  before  him.  It  brings  forward  accounts 
without  hurrying  and  distressmg  the  accountants : 
whilst  it  provides  for  public  convenience,  it  regards 
private  rights.  It  extinguishes  secret  corruption  al- 
most to  the  possibility  of  its  existence.  It  destroys 
direct  and  visible  influence  equal  to  the  offices  of  at 
least  fifty  members  of  Parliament.  Lastly,  it  prevents 
the  provision  for  his  Majesty's  children  from  being 
,  diverted  to  the  political  purposes  of  his  minister. 

These  are  the  points  on  which  I  rely  for  the  merit 
of  the  plan.  I  pursue  economy  in  a  secondary  view, 
and  only  as  it  is  connected  with  these  great  objects. 
I  am  persuaded,  that  even  for  supply  this  scheme  will 
be  far  from  unfruitful,  if  it  be  executed  to  the  extent 
I  propose  it.  I  think  it  will  give  to  the  public,  at  its 
periods,  two  or  three  hundred  thousand  pounds  a 
year  ;  if  not,  it  will  give  them  a  system  of  economy, 
which  is  itself  a  great  revenue.     It  gives  me  no  little 

*  Titles  of  the  bills  read. 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  857 

pride  and  satisfaction  to  find  that  the  principles  of 
my  proceedings  are  in  many  respects  the  very  same 
with  those  which  are  now  pursued  in  the  plans  of  the 
French  minister  of  finance.  I  am  sure  that  I  lay 
before  you  a  scheme  easy  and  practicable  in  all  its 
parts.  I  know  it  is  common  at  once  to  applaud  and 
to  reject  all  attempts  of  this  nature.  I  know  it  is  com- 
mon for  men  to  say,  that  such  and  such  things  are 
perfectly  right,  very  desirable,  —  but  that,  unfortu- 
nately, they  are  not  practicable.  Oh,  no,  Sir !  no ! 
Those  thmgs  which  are  not  practicable  are  not  desir- 
able. There  is  nothing  in  the  world  really  beneficial 
that  does  not  lie  within  the  reach  of  an  informed 
understanding  and  a  well-directed  pursuit.  There  is 
nothing  that  God  has  judged  good  for  us  that  He  has 
not  given  us  the  means  to  accomplish,  both  in  the 
natural  and  the  moral  world.  If  we  cry,  like  chil- 
dren, for  the  moon,  like  children  we  must  cry  on. 

We  must  follow  the  nature  of  our  affairs,  and  con- 
form ourselves  to  our  situation.  If  we  do,  our  objects 
are  plain  and  compassable.  Why  should  we  resolve 
to  do  nothing,  because  what  I  propose  to  you  may  not 
be  the  exact  demand  of  the  petition,  when  we  are  far 
from  resolved  to  comply  even  with  what  evidently  is 
so  ?  Does  this  sort  of  chicanery  become  us  ?  The 
people  are  the  masters.  They  have  only  to  express 
their  wants  at  large  and  in  gross.  We  are  the  expert 
artists,  we  are  the  skilful  workmen,  to  shape  their 
desires  into  perfect  form,  and  to  fit  the  utensil  to  the 
use.  They  are  the  sufferers,  they  tell  the  symptoms 
of  the  complaint ;  but  we  know  the  exact  seat  of  the 
disease,  and  how  to  apply  the  remedy  according  to 
the  rules  of  art.  How  sliocking  would  it  be  to  see 
us  pervert  our  skill  into  a  sinister  and  servile  dexter- 


858  SPEECH   ON   THE   PLAN 

ity,  for  the  purpose  of  evading  our  duty,  and  defraud- 
ing our  employers,  who  are  our  natural  lords,  of  the 
object  of  their  just  expectations !  I  think  the  whole 
not  only  practicable,  but  practicable  in  a  very  short 
time.  If  we  are  in  earnest  about  it,  and  if  we  exert 
that  industry  and  those  talents  in  forwarding  the 
work,  which,  I  am  afraid,  may  be  exerted  in  imped- 
ing it,  I  engage  that  the  whole  may  be  put  in  com- 
plete execution  within  a  year.  For  my  own  part,  I 
have  very  little  to  recommend  me  for  this  or  for  any 
task,  but  a  kind  of  earnest  and  anxious  perseverance 
of  mind,  which,  with  all  its  good  and  all  its  evil  effects, 
is  moulded  into  my  constitution.  I  faithfully  engage 
to  the  House,  if  they  choose  to  appoint  me  to  any  par* 
in  the  execution  of  this  work,  (which,  when  they  hav 
made  it  theirs  by  the  improvements  of  their  wisdom, 
will  be  worthy  of  the  able  assistance  they  may  give  me,) 
that  by  night  and  by  day,  in  town  or  in  country,  at 
the  desk  or  in  the  forest,  I  will,  without  regard  to 
convenience,  ease,  or  pleasure,  devote  myself  to  their 
service,  not  expecting  or  admitting  any  reward  what- 
soever. I  owe  to  this  country  my  labor,  which  is  my 
all ;  and  I  owe  to  it  ten  times  more  industry,  if  ten 
times  more  I  could  exert.  After  all,  I  shall  be  an 
unprofitable  servant. 

At  the  same  time,  if  I  am  able,  and  if  I  shall  be 
permitted,  I  will  lend  an  humble  helping  hand  to 
any  other  good  work  which  is  going  on.  I  have  not, 
Sir,  the  frantic  presumption  to  suppose  that  this  plan 
contains  in  it  the  whole  of  what  the  public  has  a  right 
to  expect  in  the  great  work  of  reformation  they  call 
for.  Indeed,  it  falls  infinitely  short  of  it.  It  falls 
short  even  of  my  own  ideas.  I  have  some  thoughts, 
not  yet  fully  ripened,  relative  to  a  reform  in  the  cus- 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  EEFORM.  859 

toms  and  excise,  as  well  as  irf  some  other  branches 
of  financial  administration.  There  are  other  things, 
too,  which  form  essential  parts  in  a  great  plan  for  the 
purpose  of  restoring  the  independence  of  Parliament. 
The  contractors'  bill  of  last  year  it  is  fit  to  revive  ; 
and  I  rejoice  that  it  is  in  better  hands  than  mine. 
The  bill  for  suspending  the  votes  of  custom-house 
officers,  brought  into  Parliament  several  years  ago  by 
one  of  our  worthiest  and  wisest  members,* —  would  to 
God  we  could  along  with  the  plan  revive  the  person 
who  designed  it !  but  a  man  of  very  real  integrity, 
honor,  and  ability  will  be  found  to  take  his  place, 
and  to  carry  his  idea  into  full  execution.  You  all 
see  how  necessary  it  is  to  review  our  military  expenses 
for  some  years  past,  and,  if  possible,  to  bind  up  and 
close  that  bleeding  artery  of  profusion  ;  but  that  busi- 
ness also,  I  have  reason  to  hope,  will  be  undertaken 
by  abilities  that  are  fully  adequate  to  it.  Something 
must  be  devised  (if  possible)  to  check  the  ruinous 
expense  of  elections. 

Sir,  all  or  most  of  these  things  must  be  done. 
Every  one  must  take  his  part.  If  we  should  be 
able,  by  dexterity,  or  power,  or  intrigue,  to  disap- 
point the  expectations  of  our  constituents,  what  will 
it  avail  us  ?  We  shall  never  be  strong  or  artful 
enough  to  parry,  or  to  put  by,  the  irresistible  de- 
mands of  our  situation.  That  situation  calls  upon 
us,  and  upon  our  constituents  too,  with  a  voice  which 
will  be  heard.  I  am  sure  no  man  is  more  zealously 
attached  than  I  am  to  the  privileges  of  this  House, 
particularly  in  regard  to  the  exclusive  management 
of  money.  The  Lords  have  no  right  to  the  disposition, 
in  any  sense,  of  the  public  purse  ;  but  they  have  gone 

•  W.  Djwdeswell,  Esq.,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  1765. 


860  SPEECH    ON    THE   PLAN 

further  in  self-denial  %tlian  our  utmost  jealousy  could 
have  required.  A  power  of  examining  accounts,  to 
censure,  correct,  and  punish,  we  never,  that  I  know 
of,  have  thought  of  denying  to  the  House  of  Lords,  It 
is  something  more  than  a  century  since  we  voted  that 
body  useless :  they  have  now  voted  themselves  so. 
The  whole  hope  of  reformation  is  at  length  cast  upon 
us  ;  and  let  us  not  deceive  the  nation,  which  does  us 
the  honor  to  hope  everything  from  our  virtue.  If  all 
the  nation  are  not  equally  forward  to  press  this  duty 
upon  us,  yet  be  assured  that  they  all  equally  expect 
we  should  perform  it.  The  respectful  silence  of  those 
who  wait  upon  your  pleasure  ought  to  be  as  powerful 
with  you  as  the  call  of  those  who  require  your  service 
as  their  right.  Some,  without  doors,  affect  to  feel  hurt 
for  your  dignity,  because  they  suppose  that  menaces 
are  held  out  to  you.  Justify  their  good  opinion  by 
showing  that  no  menaces  are  necessary  to  stimulate 
you  to  your  duty.  But,  Sir,  whilst  we  may  sympa- 
thize with  them  in  one  point  who  sympathize  with 
us  in  another,  we  ought  to  attend  no  less  to  those  who 
approach  us  like  men,  and  who,  in  the  guise  of  peti- 
tioners, speak  to  us  in  the  tone  of  a  concealed  author- 
ity. It  is  not  wise  to  force  them  to  speak  out  more 
plainly  what  they  plainly  mean.  —  But  the  petition- 
ers are  violent.  Be  it  so.  Those  who  are  least  anx- 
ious about  your  conduct  are  not  those  that  love  you 
most.  Moderate  affection  and  satiated  enjoyment 
are  cold  and  respectful ;  but  an  ardejit  and  injured 
passion  is  tempered  up  with  wrath,  and  grief,  and 
shame,  and  conscious  worth,  and  the  maddening 
sense  of  violated  right.  A  jealous  love  liglits  his 
torch  from  the  firebrands  of  the  furies.     They  who 

*  Rejectioa  of  Lord  Shelburne's  motion  in  the  House  of  Lords. 


FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  361 

call  Upon  you  to  belong  ivliolly  to  the  people  are  those 
who  wish  you  to  return  iojonv  proper  home,  —  to  the 
sphere  of  your  duty,  to  the  post  of  your  honor,  to  the 
mansion-house  of  all  genuine,  serene,  and  solid  satis- 
faction. We  have  furnished  to  the  people  of  England 
(indeed  we  have)  some  real  cause  of  jealousy.  Let 
us  leave  that  sort  of  company  which,  if  it  does  not 
destroy  our  innocence,  pollutes  our  honor;  let  us 
free  ourselves  at  once  from  everything  that  can  in- 
crease their  suspicions  and  inflame  their  just  resent- 
ment; let  us  cast  away  from  us,  with  a  generous 
scorn,  all  the  love-tokens  and  symbols  that  we  have 
been  vain  and  light  enough  to  accept,  —  all  the  brace- 
lets, and  snuff-boxes,  and  miniature  pictures,  and  hair 
devices,  and  all  the  other  adulterous  trinkets  that  are 
the  pledges  of  our  alienation  and  the  monuments  of 
our  shame.  Let  us  return  to  our  legitimate  home, 
and  all  jars  and  all  quarrels  will  be  lost  in  embraces. 
Let  the  commons  in  Parliament  assembled  be  one  and 
the  same  thing  with  the  commons  at  large.  The  dis- 
tinctions that  are  made  to  separate  us  are  unnatural 
and  wicked  contrivances.  Let  us  identify,  let  us  in- 
corporate ourselves  with  the  people.  Let  us  cut  all 
the  cables  and  snap  the  chains  which  tie  us  to  an 
unfaithful  shore,  and  enter  the  friendly  harbor  that 
shoots  far  out  into  the  main  its  moles  and  jetties  to 
receive  us.  "  War  with  the  world,  and  peace  with 
our  constituents."  Be  this  our  motto,  and  our  prin- 
ciple. Then,  indeed,  we  shall  be  truly  great.  Re- 
specting ourselves,  we  shall  be  respected  by  the  world. 
At  present  all  is  troubled,  and  cloudy,  and  distracted, 
and  full  of  anger  and  turbulence,  both  abroad  and  at 
home ;  but  tlie  air  may  be  cleared  by  this  storm,  and 
light  and  fertility  may  follow  it.     Let  us  give  a  faith- 


362  SPEECH   ON   THE   PLAN 

fill  pledge  to  the  people,  that  we  honor,  indeed,  the 
crown,  but  that  we  belong  to  them ;  that  we  are  their 
auxiliaries,  and  not  their  task-masters,  —  the  fellow- 
laborers  in  the  same  "vineyard,  not  lording  over  their 
rights,  but  helpers  of  their  joy ;  that  to  tax  them  is  a 
grievance  to  ourselves,  but  to  cut  off  from  our  enjoy- 
ments to  forward  theirs  is  the  highest  gratification  we 
are  capable  of  receiving.  I  feel,  with  comfort,  that 
we  are  all  warmed  with  these  sentiments,  and  while 
we  are  thus  warm,  I  wish  we  may  go  directly  and 
with  a  cheerful  heart  to  this  salutary  work. 

Sir,  I  move  for  leave  to  bring  in  a  bill,  "  For 
the  better  regulation  of  his  Majesty's  civil  establish- 
ments, and  of  certain  public  offices ;  for  the  limita- 
tion of  pensions,  and  the  suppression  of  sundry  use- 
less, expensive,  and  inconvenient  places,  and  for  ap- 
plying the  moneys  saved  thereby  to  the  public  ser- 
vice." * 

Lord  North  stated,  that  there  was  a  difference 
between  this  bill  for  regulating  the  establishments 
and  some  of  the  others,  as  they  affected  the  ancient 
patrimony  of  the  crown,  and  therefore  wished  them 
to  be  postponed  till  the  king's  consent  could  be  ob- 
tamed.  This  distinction  was  strongly  controverted ; 
but  when  it  was  insisted  on  as  a  point  of  decorum 
only,  it  was  agreed  to  postpone  them  to  another  day. 
Accordingly,  on  the  Monday  following,  viz.  Feb.  14, 
leave  was  given,  on  the  motion  of  Mr.  Burke,  without 
opposition,  to  bring  in  — 

1st,  "  A  bill  for  the  sale  of  the  forest  and  other 
crown  lands,  rents,  and  hereditaments,  with  certain 
exceptions,  and  for  applying  the  i^roduce  thereof  to 

*  The  motion  was  seconded  hy  Mr.  Fox. 


FOE  ECONOMICAL  EEFORM.  363 

the  public  service;  and  for  securing,  ascertaining, 
and  satisfying  tenant  rights,  and  common  and  other 
rights." 

2nd,  "  A  bill  for  the  more  perfectly  uniting  to  the 
crown  the  Principality  of  Wales  and  the  County 
Palatine  of  Chester,  and  for  the  more  commodious 
administration  of  justice  within  the  same  ;  as  also  for 
abolishing  certain  offices  now  appertaining  thereto, 
for  quieting  dormant  claims,  ascertaining  and  secur- 
ing tenant  rights,  and  for  the  sale  of  all  forest  lands, 
and  other  lands,  tenements,  and  hereditaments,  held 
by  his  Majesty  in  right  of  the  said  Principality,  or 
County  Palatine  of  Chester,  and  for  applying  the 
produce  thereof  to  the  public  service." 

3rd,  "A  bill  for  uniting  to  the  crown  the  Duchy 
and  County  Palatine  of  Lancaster,  for  the  suppres- 
sion of  unnecessary  offices  now  belonging  thereto, 
for  the  ascertainment  and  security  of  tenant  and  other 
rights,  and  for  the  sale  of  all  rents,  lands,  tenements, 
and  hereditaments,  and  forests,  within  the  said  Duchy 
and  County  Palatine,  or  either  of  them,  arid  for  ap- 
plying the  produce  thereof  to  the  public  service.''^ 

And  it  was  ordered  that  Mr.  Burke,  Mr.  Fox,  Lord 
John  Cavendish,  Sir  George  Savile,  Colonel  Barr^, 
Mr.  Thomas  Townshend,  Mr.  Byng,  Mr.  Dunning, 
Sir  Joseph  Mawbey,  Mr.  Recorder  of  London,  Sir 
Robert  Clayton,  Mr.  Frederick  Montagu,  the  Earl  of 
Upper  Ossory,  Sir  William  Guise,  and  Mr.  Gilbert  do 
prepare  and  bring  in  the  same. 

At  the  same  time,  Mr.  Burke  moved  for  leave  to 
bring  in  — 

4th,  "  A  bill  for  uniting  the  Duchy  of  Cornwall  to 
the  crown  ;  for  the  suppression  of  certain  unnecessary 
offices  now  belonging  thereto ;  for  the  ascertainment 


864        SPEECH  ON  ECONOMICAL  REPOEM. 

and  security  of  tenant  and  other  rights;  and  for  the 
sale  of  certain  rents,  lands,  and  tenements,  within  or 
belonging  to  the  said  Duchy ;  and  for  applying  the 
produce  thereof  to  the  public  service.''^ 

But  some  objections  being  made  by  the  Surveyor- 
General  of  the  Duchy  concerning  the  rights  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  now  in  his  minority,  and  Lord  North 
remaining  perfectly  silent,  Mr.  Burke,  at  length, 
though  he  strongly  contended  against  the  principle 
of  the  objection,  consented  to  withdraw  this  last  mo- 
tion for  the  present^  to  be  renewed  upon  an  early 
occasion. 


SPEECH 


AT  THE 


GUILDHALL  IN  BRISTOL,  PREVIOUS  TO  THE 
LATE  ELECTION  IN  THAT  CITY, 

UPON 

CERTAIN   POINTS    RELATIVE   TO  HIS  PAR- 
LIAMENTARY  CONDUCT. 

1780. 


SPEECH. 


MR.  MAYOR,  AND  GENTLElilEN,  —  I  am  ex- 
tremely pleased  at  the  appearance  of  this  large 
and  respectable  meeting.  The  steps  I  may  be  obliged 
to  take  will  want  the  sanction  of  a  considerable  au- 
thority ;  and  in  explaining  anything  which  may  ap- 
pear doubtful  in  my  public  conduct,  I  must  naturally 
desire  a  very  full  audience. 

I  have  been  backward  to  begin  my  canvass.  The 
dissolution  of  the  Parliament  was  uncertain ;  and  it 
did  not  become  me,  by  an  unseasonable  importunity, 
to  appear  diffident  of  the  effect  of  my  six  years'  en- 
deavors to  please  you.  I  had  served  the  city  of  Bris- 
tol honorably,  and  the  city  of  Bristol  had  no  reason 
to  think  that  the  means  of  honorable  service  to  the 
public  were  become  indifferent  to  me. 

I  found,  on  my  arrival  here,  that  three  gentlemen 
had  been  long  in  eager  pursuit  of  an  object  which  but 
two  of  us  can  obtain.  I  found  that  they  had  all  met 
with  encouragement.  A  contested  election  in  such  a 
city  as  this  is  no  light  thing.  I  paused  on  the  brink 
of  the  precipice.  These  three  gentlemen,  by  various 
merits,  and  on  various  titles,  I  made  no  doubt  were 
worthy  of  your  favor.  I  shall  never  attempt  to  raise 
myself  by  depreciating  the  merits  of  my  competitors. 
In  the  complexity  and  confusion  of  these  cross  pur- 
suits, I  wished  to  take  the  authentic  public  sense  of 
my  friends  upon  a  business  of  so  much  delicacy.     I 


368  SPEECH    AT    BRISTOL, 

wished  to  take  your  opinion  along  with  me,  that,  if  I 
should  give  up  the  contest  at  the  very  beginning,  my 
surrender  of  my  post  may  not  seem  the  effect  of  in- 
constancy, or  timidity,  or  anger,  or  disgust,  or  indo- 
lence, or  any  other  temper  unbecoming  a  man  who 
has  engaged  in  the  public  service.  If,  on  the  con- 
trary, I  should  undertake  the  election,  and  fail  of 
success,  I  was  full  as  anxious  that  it  should  be  man- 
ifest to  the  whole  world  that  the  peace  of  the  city  had 
not  been  broken  by  my  rashness,  presumption,  or  fond 
conceit  of  my  own  merit. 

I  am  not  come,  by  a  false  and  counterfeit  show  of 
deference  to  your  judgment,  to  seduce  it  in  my  favor. 
I  ask  it  seriously  and  unaffectedly.  If  you  wish  that 
I  should  retire,  I  shall  not  consider  that  advice  as  a 
censure  upon  my  conduct,  or  an  alteration  in  your 
sentiments,  but  as  a  rational  submission  to  the  cir- 
cumstances of  affairs.  If,  on  the  contrary,  you  should 
think  it  proper  for  me  to  proceed  on  my  canvass,  if 
you  will  risk  the  trouble  on  your  part,  I  will  risk  it 
on  mine.  My  pretensions  are  such  as  you  cannot  be 
ashamed  of,  whether  they  succeed  or  fail. 

If  you  call  upon  me,  I  shall  solicit  the  favor  of  the 
city  up^n  manly  ground.  I  come  before  you  with  the 
plain  confidence  of  an  honest  servant  in  the  equity 
of  a  candid  and  discerning  master.  I  come  to  claim 
your  approbation,  not  to  amuse  you  with  vain  apolo- 
gies, or  with  professions  still  more  vain  and  senseless. 
I  have  lived  too  long  to  be  served  by  apologies,  or  to 
stand  in  need  of  them.  The  part  I  have  acted  has 
been  in  open  day ;  and  to  hold  out  to  a  conduct 
which  stands  in  that  clear  and  steady  light  for  all  its 
good  and  all  its  evil,  to  hold  out  to  that  conduct 
the  paltry  winking  tapers  of  excuses  and  promises, 


PREYIOUS   TO   THE   ELECTION.  369 

—  I  never  ^vill  do  it.  They  may  obscure  it  with  their 
smoke,  but  they  never  can  ilhimine  sunshine  by  such 
a  flame  as  theirs. 

I  am  sensible  that  no  endea,vors  have  been  left  un- 
tried to  injure  me  in  your  opinion.  But  the  use  of 
character  is  to  be  a  shield  against  calumny.  I  could 
wish,  undoubtedly,  (if  idle  wishes  were  not  the  most 
idle  of  all  things,)  to  make  every  part  of  my  conduct 
agreeable  to  every  one  of  my  constituents  ;  but  in  so 
great  a  city,  and  so  greatly  divided  as  this,  it  is  weak 
to  expect  it. 

In  such  a  discordancy  of  sentiments  it  is  better  to 
look  to  the  nature  of  things  than  to  the  humors  of 
men.  The  very  attempt  towards  pleasing  everybody 
discovers  a  temper  always  flashy,  and  often  false  and 
insincere.  Therefore,  as  I  have  proceeded  straight 
onward  in  my  conduct,  so  I  will  proceed  in  my  ac- 
count of  those  parts  of  it  which  have  been  most  ex- 
cepted to.  But  I  must  first  beg  leave  just  to  hint 
to  you  that  we  may  suffer  very  great  detriment  by 
being  open  to  every  talker.  It  is  not  to  be  imagined 
how  much  of  service  is  lost  from  spirits  full  of  activ- 
ity and  full  of  energy,  who  are  pressing,  who  are 
rushing  forward,  to  great  and  capital  objects,  when 
you  oblige  them  to  be  continually  looking  back. 
Whilst  they  are  defending  one  service,  they  defraud 
you  of  an  hundred.  Applaud  us  when  we  run,  con- 
sole us  when  we  fall,  cheer  us  when  we  recover ; 
but  let  us  pass  on,  —  for  God's  sake,  let  us  pass  on  ! 

Do  you  think.  Gentlemen,  that  every  public  act  in 
the  six  years  since  I  stood  in  this  place  before  you, 
tliat  all  the  arduous  things  which  have  been  done 
in  this  eventful  period  which  has  crowded  into  a  few 
years'  space  the  revolutions  of  an  age,  can  be  opened 

VOL.  II.  24 


370  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL, 

to  you  on  their  fair  grounds  in  half  an  hour's  con- 
versation ? 

But  it  is  no  reason,  because  there  is  a  bad  mode  of 
inquiry,  that  there  should  be  no  examination  at  all. 
Most  certainly  it  is  our  duty  to  examine ;  it  is  our 
interest,  too :  but  it  must  be  with  discretion,  with  an 
attention  to  all  the  circumstances  and  to  all  the  mo- 
tives ;  like  sound  judges,  and  not  like  cavilling  petti- 
foggers and  quibbling  pleaders,  prying  into  flaws  and 
hunting  for  exceptions.  Look,  Gentlemen,  to  the 
whole  tenor  of  your  member's  conduct.  Try  whether 
his  ambition  or  his  avarice  have  justled  him  out  of 
the  straight  line  of  duty,  —  or  whether  that  grand  foe 
of  the  offices  of  active  life,  that  master  vice  in  men 
of  business,  a  degenerate  and  inglorious  sloth,  has 
made  him  flag  and  languish  in  his  course.  This  is 
the  object  of  our  inquiry.  If  our  member's  conduct 
can  bear  this  touch,  mark  it  for  sterling.  He  may 
have  fallen  into  errors,  he  must  have  faults ;  but 
our  error  is  greater,  and  our  fault  is  radically  ru- 
inous to  ourselves,  if  we  do  not  bear,  if  we  do  not 
even  applaud,  the  whole  compound  and  mixed  mass 
of  such  a  character.  Not  to  act  thus  is  folly  ;  I  had 
almost  said  it  is  impiety.  He  censures  God  who 
quarrels  with  the  imperfections  of  man. 

Gentlemen,  we  must  not  be  peevish  with  those  who 
serve  the  people  ;  for  none  will  serve  us,  whilst  there 
is  a  court  to  serve,  but  those  who  are  of  a  nice  and 
jealous  honor.  They  who  think  everything,  in  com- 
parison of  that  honor,  to  be  dust  and  ashes,  will  not 
bear  to  have  it  soiled  and  impaired  by  those  for  whose 
sake  they  make  a  thousand  sacrifices  to  preserve  it 
immaculate  and  whole.  We  shall  either  drive  such 
men  from  the  public  stage,  or  we  shall  send  them  to 


PUEMOUS   10   THE   ELECTION.  371 

the  court  for  protection,  where,  if  they  must  sacri- 
fice their  reputation,  they  will  at  least  secure  their 
interest.  Depend  upon  it,  that  the  lovers  of  freedom 
will  be  free.  None  will  violate  their  conscience  to 
please  us,  in  order  afterwards  to  discharge  that  con- 
science, which  they  have  violated,  by  doing  us  faith- 
ful and  affectionate  service.  If  we  degrade  and  de- 
prave their  minds  by  servility,  it  will  be  absurd  to 
expect  that  tliey  who  are  creeping  and  abject  towards 
us  will  ever  be  bold  and  incorruptible  assertors  of  our 
freedom  against  the  most  seducing  and  the  most  for- 
midable of  all  powers.  No  !  human  nature  is  not  so 
formed  :  nor  shall  we  improve  the  faculties  or  better 
the  morals  of  public  men  by  our  possession  of  the 
most  infallible  receipt  in  the  world  for  making  cheats 
and  hypocrites. 

Let  me  say,  with  plainness,  I  who  am  no  longer  in 
a  public  character,  that,  if,  by  a  fair,  by  an  indulgent, 
by  a  gentlemanly  behavior  to  our  representatives, 
we  do  not  give  confidence  to  their  minds  and  a  lib- 
eral scope  to  their  understandings,  if  we  do  not  per- 
mit our  members  to  act  upon  a  very  enlarged  view 
of  things,  we  shall  at  length  infallibly  degrade  our 
national  representation  into  a  confused  and  scuffling 
bustle  of  local  agency.  When  the  popular  member 
is  narrowed  in  his  ideas  and  rendered  timid  in  his 
proceedings,  the  ser\ice  of  the  crown  will  be  the  sole 
nursery  of  statesmen.  Among  the  frolics  of  the  court, 
it  may  at  length  take  that  of  attending  to  its  busi- 
ness. Tlicn  the  monopoly  of  mental  power  will  be 
added  to  the  power  of  all  other  kinds  it  possesses. 
On  the  side  of  the  people  there  will  be  notliing  but 
impotence  :  for  ignorance  is  impotence ;  narrowness 
of  mind  is  impotence ;  timidity  is  itself  impotence, 


372  SPEECH    AT   BRISTOL 


and  makes  all  other  qualities  that  go  along  with  it 
impotent  and  useless. 

At  present  it  is  the  plan  of  the  court  to  make  its 
servants  insignificant.  If  the  people  should  fall  into 
the  same  humor,  and  should  choose  their  servants  on 
the  same  principles  of  mere  obsequiousness  and  flexi- 
bility and  total  vacancy  or  indifference  of  opinion  in 
all  public  matters,  then  no  part  of  the  state  will  be 
sound,  and  it  will  be  in  vain  to  think  of  saving  it. 

I  thought  it  very  expedient  at  this  time  to  give  you 
this  candid  counsel ;  and  with  this  counsel  I  would 
willingly  close,  if  the  matters  which  at  various  times 
have  been  objected  to  me  in  this  city  concerned  only 
myself  and  my  own  election.  Tliese  charges,  I  think, 
are  four  in  number :  my  neglect  of  a  due  attention 
to  my  constituents,  the  not  paying  more  frequent 
visits  here ;  my  conduct  on  the  affairs  of  the  first 
Irish  Trade  Acts ;  my  opinion  and  mode  of  proceed- 
ing on  Lord  Beauchamp's  Debtors'  Bills ;  and  my 
votes  on  the  late  affairs  of  the  Roman  Catholics.  All 
of  these  (except  perhaps  the  first)  relate  to  matters 
of  very  considerable  public  concern ;  and  it  is  not 
lest  you  should  censure  me  improperly,  but  lest  you 
should  form  improper  opinions  on  matters  of  some 
moment  to  you,  that  I  trouble  you  at  all  upon  the 
subject.     My  conduct  is  of  small  importance. 

With  regard  to  the  first  charge,  my  friends  have 
spoken  to  me  of  it  in  the  style  of  amicable  expostula- 
tion, —  not  so  much  blaming  the  thing  as  lamenting 
the  effects.  Others,  less  partial  to  me,  were  less 
kind  in  assigning  the  motives.  I  admit,  there  is  a 
decorum  and  propriety  in  a  member  of  Parliament's 
paying  a  respectful  court  to  his  constituents.  If  I 
were  conscious  to  myself  that  pleasure,  or  dissipation. 


PREVIOUS   TO   THE   ELECTION.  373 

or  low,  "Unworthy  occupations  had  detained  me  from 
personal  attendance  on  you,  I  would  readily  admit 
my  fault,  and  quietly  submit  to  the  penalty.  But, 
Gentlemen,  I  live  at  an  hundred  miles'  distance  from 
Bristol ;  and  at  the  end  of  a  session  I  come  to  my 
own  house,  fatigued  in  body  and  in  mind,  to  a  little 
repose,  and  to  a  very  little  attention  to  my  family 
and  my  private  concerns.  A  visit  to  Bristol  is  always 
a  sort  of  canvass,  else  it  will  do  more  harm  than 
good.  To  pass  from  the  toils  of  a  session  to  the  toils 
of  a  canvass  is  the  furthest  thing  in  the  world  from 
repose.  I  could  hardly  serve  you  as  I  have  done,  and 
court  you  too.  Most  of  you  have  heard  that  I  do  not 
very  remarkably  spare  myself  in  public  business  ;  and 
in  the  private  business  of  my  constituents  I  have  done 
very  near  as  much  as  those  who  have  nothing  else 
to  do.  My  canvass  of  you  was  not  on  the  'change, 
nor  in  the  county  meetings,  nor  in  the  clubs  of  this 
city :  it  was  in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  it  was  at  the 
Custom-House ;  it  was  at  the  Council ;  it  was  at  the 
Treasury  ;  it  was  at  the  Admiralty.  I  canvassed  you 
through  your  affairs,  and  not  your  persons.  I  was 
not  only  your  representative  as  a  body ;  I  was  the 
agent,  the  solicitor  of  individuals  ;  I  ran  about  wher- 
ever your  affairs  could  call  me ;  and  in  acting  for 
you,  I  often  appeared  rather  as  a  ship-broker  than  as 
a  member  of  Parliament.  There  was  nothing  too 
laborious  or  too  low  for  me  to  undertake.  The 
meanness  of  the  business  was  raised  by  the  dignity 
of  the  object.  If  some  lesser  matters  have  slipped 
through  my  fingers,  it  was  because  I  filled  my  hands 
too  full,  and,  in  my  eagerness  to  serve  you,  took  in 
more  than  any  hands  could  grasp.  Several  gentle- 
men stand  round  me  who  are  ray  willing  witnesses ; 


374  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL, 

and  there  are  others  who,  if  they  were  here,  would 
be  still  better,  because  they  would  be  unwilling  wit- 
nesses to  the  same  truth.  It  was  in  the  middle  of  a 
summer  residence  in  London,  and  in  the  middle  of 
a  negotiation  at  the  Admiralty  for  your  trade,  that  I 
was  called  to  Bristol ;  and  this  late  visit,  at  this  late 
day,  has  been  possibly  in  prejudice  to  your  affairs. 

Since  I  have  touched  upon  this  matter,  let  me  say, 
Gentlemen,  that,  if  I  had  a  disposition  or  a  right  to 
complain,  I  have  some  cause  of  complaint  on  my  side. 
With  a  petition  of  this  city  in  my  hand,  passed  through 
the  corporation  without  a  dissenting  voice,  a  petition 
in  unison  with  almost  the  whole  voice  of  the  king- 
dom, (with  whose  formal  thanks  I  was  covered  over,) 
whilst  I  labored  on  no  less  than  five  bills  for  a  public 
reform,  and  fought,  against  the  opposition  of  great 
abilities  and  of  the  greatest  power,  every  clause  and 
every  word  of  the  largest  of  those  bills,  almost  to  the 
very  last  day  of  a  very  long  session,  —  all  this  time  a 
canvass  in  Bristol  was  as  calmly  carried  on  as  if  I 
were  dead.  I  was  considered  as  a  man  wholly  out 
of  the  question.  Whilst  I  watched  and  fasted  and 
sweated  in  the  House  of  Commons,  by  the  most 
easy  and  ordinary  arts  of  election,  by  dinners  and 
visits,  by  "  How  do  you  dos,"  and  "  My  worthy 
friends,"  I  was  to  be  quietly  moved  out  of  my  seat, — 
and  promises  were  made,  and  engagements  entered 
into,  without  any  exception  or  reserve,  as  if  my  labo- 
rious zeal  in  my  duty  had  been  a  regular  abdication 
of  my  trust. 

To  open  my  whole  heart  to  you  on  this  subject,  [ 
do  confess,  however,  that  there  were  other  times,  be- 
sides the  two  years  in  which  I  did  visit  you,  when  I 
was  not  wholly  without  leisure  for  repeating  that 


PREVIOUS    TO    THE    ELECTION.  375 

mark  of  my  respect.    But  I  could  not  bring  my  mind 
to  see  you.     You  remember  that  in  the  beginning  of 
this  American  war  (that  era  of  calamity,  disgrace, 
and  downfall,  an  era  which  no  feeling  mind  will  ever 
mention  without  a  tear  for  England)  you  were  greatly 
divided,  —  and  a  very  strong  body,  if  not  the  stron- 
gest, opposed  itself  to  the  madness  which  every  art 
and  every  power  were  employed  to  render  popular,  in 
order  that  the  errors  of  the  rulers  might  be  lost  in 
the  general  blindness  of  the  nation.     This  opposition 
continued  until  after  our  great,  but  most  unfortunate 
victory  at  Long  Island.     Then  all  the  mounds  and 
banks  of  our  constancy  were  borne  down  at  once, 
and  the  frenzy  of  the  American  war  broke  in  upon  us 
like  a  deluge.     This  victory,  which  seemed  to  put  an 
immediate  end  to  all  difficulties,  perfected  us  in  that 
spirit  of  domination  which  our  unparalleled  prosperity 
had  but  too  long  nurtured.     We  had  been  so  very 
powerful,  and  so  very  prosperous,  that  even  the  hum- 
blest of  us  were  degraded  into  the  vices  and  follies  of 
kings.      We  lost  all   measure   between   means   and 
ends ;  and  our  headlong  desires  became  our  politics 
and  our  morals.     All  men  who  wislied  for  peace,  or 
retained  any  sentiments  of  moderation,  were  over- 
borne or  silenced  ;  and  this  city  was  led  by  every 
artifice  (and  probably  with  the  more  management 
because  I  was  one  of  your  members)  to  distinguish 
itself  by  its  zeal  for  that  fatal  cause.     In  this  temper 
of  yours  and  of  my  mind,  I  should  sooner  have  fled  to 
the  extremities  of  the  earth  than  have  shown  myself 
here.    I,  who  saw  in  every  American  victory  (for  you 
have  had  a  long  series  of  tliese  misfortunes)  the  germ 
and  seed  of  the  naval  power  of  France  and  Spain, 
whicli  all  our  heat  and  warmth  against  America  was 


376  SPEECH    AT   BRISTOL, 

only  hatching  mto  life,  —  I  should  not  have  been  a 
welcome  visitant,  witli  the  brow  and  the  language  of 
such  feelings.  When  afterwards  the  other  face  of 
your  calamity  was  turned  upon  you,  and  showed  it- 
self in  defeat  and  distress,  I  shunned  you  full  as 
much.  I  felt  sorely  this  variety  in  our  wretchedness  ; 
and  I  did  not  wish  to  have  the  least  appearance  of 
insulting  you  with  that  show  of  superiority,  which, 
though  it  may  not  be  assumed,  is  generally  suspected, 
in  a  time  of  calamity,  from  those  whose  previous  warn- 
ings have  been  despised.  I  could  not  bear  to  show  you 
a  representative  whose  face  did  not  reflect  that  of  his 
constituents,  —  a  face  that  could  not  joy  in  your  joys, 
and  sorrow  in  your  sorrows.  But  time  at  length  has 
made  us  all  of  one  opinion,  and  we  have  all  opened 
our  eyes  on  the  true  nature  of  the  American  war,  —  to 
the  true  nature  of  all  its  successes  and  all  its  failures. 

In  that  public  storm,  too,  I  had  my  private  feel- 
ings. I  had  seen  blown  down  and  prostrate  on  the 
ground  several  of  those  houses  to  whom  I  was  chiefly 
indebted  for  the  honor  this  city  has  done  me.  I  con- 
fess, that,  whilst  the  wounds  of  those  I  loved  were 
yet  green,  I  could  not  bear  to  show  myself  in  pride 
and  triumph  in  that  place  into  which  their  partiality 
had  brought  me,  and  to  appear  at  feasts  and  rejoic- 
ings in  the  midst  of  the  grief  and  calamity  of  my 
warm  friends,  my  zealous  supporters,  my  generous 
benefactors.  This  is  a  true,  unvarnished,  undisguised 
state  of  the  affair.     You  will  judge  of  it. 

This  is  the  only  one  of  the  charges  in  which  I  am 
personally  concerned.  As  to  the  other  matters  ob- 
jected against  me,  which  in  their  turn  I  shall  mention 
to  you,  remember  once  more  I  do  not  mean  to  exten- 
uate or  excuse.     Why  should  I,  when,  tlic  things 


PEEVIOUS   TO   THE   ELECTION.  877 

charged  are  among  tliose  upon  wliicli  I  found  all  my 
reputation  ?  What  would  be  left  to  me,  if  I  myself 
was  the  man  who  softened  and  blended  and  diluted 
and  weakened  all  the  distinguishing  colors  of  my 
life,  so  as  to  leave  nothing  distinct  and  determinate 
in  my  whole  conduct  ? 

It  has  been  said,  and  it  is  the  second  charge,  that 
in  the  questions  of  the  Irish  trade  I  did  not  consult 
the  interest  of  my  constituents,  —  or,  to  speak  out 
strongly,  that  I  rather  acted  as  a  native  of  Ireland 
than  as  an  English  member  of  Parliament. 

I  certainly  have  very  warm  good  wishes  for  the 
place  of  my  birth.  But  the  sphere  of  my  duties  is  my 
true  country.  It  was  as  a  man  attached  to  your  in- 
terests, and  zealous  for  the  conservation  of  your  pow- 
er and  dignity,  that  I  acted  on  that  occasion,  and  on 
all  occasions.  You  were  involved  in  the  American 
war.  A  new  world  of  policy  was  opened,  to  which 
it  was  necessary  we  should  conform,  whether  we 
would  or  not ;  and  my  only  thought  was  how  to  con- 
form to  our  situation  in  such  a  manner  as  to  unite  to 
this  kingdom,  in  prosperity  and  in  atfection,  whatever 
remained  of  the  empire.  I  was  true  to  my  old,  stand- 
uig,  invariable  principle,  that  all  things  which  came 
from  Great  Britain  should  issue  as  a  gift  of  her 
bounty  and  beneficence,  rather  than  as  claims  recov- 
ered against  a  struggling  litigant,  —  or  at  least,  that, 
if  your  beneficence  obtained  no  credit  in  your  conces- 
sions, yet  that  they  sliould  appear  the  salutary  pro- 
visions of  your  wisdom  and  foresight,  not  as  things 
wrung  from  you  with  your  blood  by  the  cruel  gripe 
of  a  rigid  necessity.  The  first  concessions,  by  being 
(much  against  my  will)  mangled  and  stripped  of  the 
parts  which  were  necessary  to  make  out  tlicir  just 


378  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL, 

3orrespondence  and  connection  in  trade,  were  of  no 
use.  The  next  year  a  feeble  attempt  was  made  to 
bring  the  thing  into  better  shape.  This  attempt, 
(countenanced  by  the  minister,)  on  the  very  first  ap- 
pearance of  some  popular  uneasiness,  was,  after  a 
considerable  progress  through  the  House,  thrown 
out  by  him. 

What  was  the  consequence  ?  The  whole  kingdom 
of  Ireland  was  instantly  in  a  flame.  Threatened  by 
foreigners,  and,  as  they  thought,  insulted  by  England, 
they  resolved  at  once  to  resist  the  power  of  France 
and  to  cast  off  yours.  As  for  us,  we  were  able 
neither  to  protect  nor  to  restrain  them.  Forty  thou- 
sand men  were  raised  and  disciplined  without  com- 
mission from  the  crown.  Two  illegal  armies  were 
seen  with  banners  displayed  at  the  same  time  and  in 
the  same  country.  No  executive  magistrate,  no  judi- 
cature, in  Ireland,  would  acknowledge  the  legality 
of  the  army  which  bore  the  king's  commission ;  and 
no  law,  or  appearance  of  law,  authorized  the  army 
commissioned  by  itself.  In  this  unexampled  state  of 
things,  which  the  least  error,  the  least  trespass  on 
the  right  or  left,  would  have  hurried  down  the  preci- 
pice into  an  abyss  of  blood  and  confusion,  the  people 
of  Ireland  demand  a  freedom  of  trade  with  arms  in 
their  hands.  They  interdict  all  commerce  between 
the  two  nations.  They  deny  all  new  supply  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  although  in  time  of  war.  They 
stint  the  trust  of  the  old  revenue,  given  for  two  years 
to  all  the  king's  predecessors,  to  six  months.  The 
British  Parliament,  in  a  former  session,  frightened 
into  a  limited  concession  by  the  menaces  of  Ireland, 
frightened  out  of  it  by  the  menaces  of  England,  was 
now  frightened  back  again,  and  made  an  universal 


PREVIOUS  TO  THE  ELECTION.         379 

sxirrender  of  all  that  had  been  thought  the  peculiar, 
reserved,  uncommunicable  rights  of  England :  the 
exclusive  commerce  of  America,  of  Africa,  of  the  West 
Indies,  —  all  the  enumerations  of  the  Acts  of  Nav- 
igation,—  all  the  manufactures,  —  iron,  glass,  even 
the  last  pledge  of  jealousy  and  pride,  the  interest  hid 
in  the  secret  of  our  hearts,  the  inveterate  prejudice 
moulded  into  the  constitution  of  our  frame,  even  the 
sacred  fleece  itself,  all  went  together.  No  reserve, 
no  exception ;  no  debate,  no  discussion.  A  sudden 
light  broke  in  upon  us  all.  It  broke  in,  not  through 
"W^ell-contrived  and  well-disposed  windows,  but  through 
flaws  and  breaches,  —  through  the  yawning  chasms  of 
our  ruin.  We  were  taught  wisdom  by  humiliation. 
No  town  in  England  presumed  to  have  a  prejudice, 
or  dared  to  mutter  a  petition.  What  was  worse,  the 
whole  Parliament  of  England,  which  retained  author- 
ity for  nothing  but  surrenders,  was  despoiled  of  every 
shadow  of  its  superintendence.  It  was,  without  any 
qualification,  denied  in  theory,  as  it  had  been  tram- 
pled upon  in  practice.  This  scene  of  shame  and  dis- 
grace has,  in  a  manner,  whilst  I  am  speaking,  ended 
by  the  perpetual  establishment  of  a  military  power  in 
the  dominions  of  this  crown,  without  consent  of  the 
British  legislature,*  contrary  to  the  policy  of  the  Con- 
stitution, contrary  to  the  Declaration  of  Right ;  and 
by  this  your  liberties  are  swept  away  along  with  your 
supreme  authority,  —  and  both,  linked  together  from 
the  beginning,  have,  I  am  afraid,  both  together  per- 
ished forever. 

What !  Gentlemen,  was  I  not  to  foresee,  or  foresee- 
ing, was  I  not  to  endeavor  to  save  you  from  all  these 
multiphed  mischiefs  and  disgraces  ?    Would  the  little, 

*  Irish  rerpetual  Mutiny  Act. 


380  SPEECH    AT    BRISTOL, 

silly,  canvass  prattle  of  obeying  instructions,  and  hav- 
ing no  opinions  but  yours,  and  such  idle,  senseless 
tales,  which  amuse  the  vacant  ears  of  unthinking  men, 
have  saved  you  from  "  the  pelting  of  that  pitiless 
storm,"  to  which  tlie  loose  improvidence,  the  coward- 
ly rashness,  of  those  who  dare  not  look  danger  in  the 
face  so  as  to  provide  against  it  in  time,  and  therefore 
throw  themselves  headlong  into  the  midst  of  it,  have 
exposed  this  degraded  nation,  beat  down  and  pros- 
trate on  the  earth,  unsheltered,  unarmed,  unresisting  ? 
Was  I  an  Irishman  on  that  day  that  I  boldly  with- 
stood our  pride  ?  or  on  the  day  that  I  hung  down  my 
head,  and  wept  in  shame  and  silence  over  the  humil- 
iation of  Great  Britain  ?  I  became  unpopular  in 
England  for  the  one,  and  in  Ireland  for  the  other. 
What  then  ?  What  obligation  lay  on  me  to  be  popu- 
lar ?  I  was  bound  to  serve  both  kingdoms.  To  be 
pleased  with  my  service  was  their  affair,  not  mine. 

I  was  an  Irishman  in  the  Irish  business,  just  as 
much  as  I  was  an  American,  when,  on  the  same  prin- 
ciples, I  wished  you  to  concede  to  America  at  a  time 
when  she  prayed  concession  at  our  feet.  Just  as 
much  was  I  an  American,  when  I  wished  Parliament 
to  offer  terms  in  victory,  and  not  to  wait  the  well- 
chosen  hour  of  defeat,  for  making  good  by  weakness 
and  by  supplication  a  claim  of  prerogative,  preemi- 
nence, and  authority. 

Instead  of  requiring  it  from  me,  as  a  point  of  duty, 
to  kindle  with  your  passions,  had  you  all  been  as  cool 
as  I  was,  you  would  have  been  saved  disgraces  and 
distresses  that  are  unutterable.  Do  you  remember 
our  commission  ?  We  sent  out  a  solemn  embassy 
across  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  to  lay  the  crown,  the  peer- 
age, the  commons  of  Great  Britain  at  the  feet  of  the 


PREVIOUS   TO    THE   ELECTION.  381 

American  Congress.  Tliat  our  disgrace  miglit  want 
no  sort  of  brightening  and  burnishing,  observe  who 
they  were  that  composed  this  famous  embassy.  My 
Lord  Carlisle  is  among  the  first  ranks  of  our  nobility. 
He  is  the  identical  man  who,  but  two  years  before, 
had  been  put  forward,  at  the  opening  of  a  session,  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  as  the  mover  of  an  haughty  and 
rigorous  address  against  America.  He  was  put  in 
the  front  of  the  embassy  of  submission.  Mr.  Eden 
was  taken  from  the  office  of  Lord  Suffolk,  to  whom 
he  was  then  Under-Secretary  of  State,  —  from  the 
office  of  that  Lord  Suffolk  wlio  but  a  few  weeks  before, 
in  his  place  in  Parliament,  did  not  deign  to  inquire 
where  a  congress  of  vagrants  was  to  be  found.  This 
Lord  Suffolk  sent  Mr.  Eden  to  find  these  vagrants, 
without  knowing  where  his  king's  generals  were  to 
be  found  who  were  joined  in  the  same  commission 
of  supplicating  those  whom  they  were  sent  to  subdue. 
They  enter  the  capital  of  America  only  to  abandon  it ; 
and  these  assertors  and  representatives  of  the  dignity 
of  England,  at  the  tail  of  a  flying  army,  let  fly  their 
Parthian  shafts  of  memorials  and  remonstrances  at 
random  behind  them.  Their  promises  and  their  offers, 
their  flatteries  and  their  menaces,  were  all  despised  ; 
and  we  were  saved  the  disgrace  of  their  formal  recep- 
tion only  because  the  Congress  scorned  to  receive 
them  ;  whilst  the  state-house  of  independent  Philadel- 
phia opened  her  doors  to  the  public  entry  of  the  am- 
bassador of  France.  From  war  and  blood  we  went 
to  submission,  and  from  submission  plunged  back 
again. to  war  and  blood,  to  desolate  and  be  desolated, 
without  measure,  hope,  or  end.  I  am  a  Royalist :  I 
blushed  for  this  degradation  of  the  crown.  I  am  a 
Whig :  I  blushed  for  the  dishonor  of  Parliament.     I 


382  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL 


am  a  true  Englishman :  I  felt  to  the  quick  for  the 
disgrace  of  England.  I  am  a  man :  I  felt  for  the 
melancholy  reverse  of  human  affairs  in  the  fall  of 
the  first  power  in  the  world. 

To  read  what  was  approaching  in  Ireland,  in  the 
black  and  bloody  characters  of  the  American  war, 
was  a  painful,  but  it  was  a  necessary  part  of  my  pub- 
lic duty.  For,  Gentlemen,  it  is  not  your  fond  desires 
or  mine  that  can  alter  the  nature  of  things  ;  by  con- 
tending against  which,  what  have  we  got,  or  shall 
ever  get,  but  defeat  and  shame  ?  I  did  not  obey  your 
instructions.  No.  I  conformed  to  the  instructions 
of  truth  and  Nature,  and  maintained  your  interest, 
against  your  opinions,  with  a  constancy  that  became 
me.  A  representative  worthy  of  you  ought  to  be  a 
person  of  stability.  I  am  to  look,  indeed,  to  your 
opinions,  —  but  to  such  opinions  as  you  and  I  must 
have  five  years  hence.  I  was  not  to  look  to  the  flash 
of  the  day.  I  knew  that  you  chose  me,  in  my  place, 
along  with  others,  to  be  a  pillar  of  the  state,  and  not 
a  weathercock  on  the  top  of  the  edifice,  exalted  for 
my  levity  and  versatility,  and  of  no  use  but  to  indi- 
cate the  shiftings  of  every  fashionable  gale.  Would 
to  God  the  value  of  my  sentiments  on  Ireland  and  on 
America  had  been  at  this  day  a  subject  of  doubt  and 
discussion  !  No  matter  what  my  sufferings  had  been, 
so  that  this  kingdom  had  kept  the  authority  I  wished 
it  to  maintain,  by  a  grave  foresight,  and  by  an  equi- 
table temperance  in  the  use  of  its  power. 

The  next  article  of  charge  on  my  public  conduct, 
and  that  which  I  find  rather  the  most  prevalent  of  all, 
is  Lord  Beauchamp's  bill :  I  mean  his  bill  of  last 
session,  for  reforming  the  law-process  concerning  im- 
prisonment.    It  is  said,  to  aggravate  the  offence,  that 


PREVIOUS  TO  THE  ELECTION.         383 

I  treated  the  petition  of  this  city  with  contempt  even 
in  presenting  it  to  the  House,  and  expressed  myself 
in  terms  of  marked  disrespect.  Had  this  latter  part 
of  the  charge  been  true,  no  merits  on  the  side  of  the 
question  wliich  I  took  could  possibly  excuse  me.  But 
I  am  incapable  of  treating  this  city  with  disrespect. 
Yery  fortunately,  at  this  minute,  (if  my  bad  eyesight 
does  not  deceive  me,)  the  worthy  gentleman  *  deputed 
on  this  business  stands  directly  before  me.  To  him 
I  appeal,  whether  I  did  not,  though  it  militated  with 
my  oldest  and  my  most  recent  public  opinions,  de- 
liver the  petition  with  a  strong  and  more  than  usual 
recommendation  to  the  consideration  of  the  House, 
on  account  of  the  character  and  consequence  of  those 
who  signed  it.  I  believe  the  worthy  gentleman  will 
tell  you,  that*,  the  very  day  I  received  it,  I  applied  to 
the  Solicitor,  now  the  Attorney  General,  to  give  it  an 
immediate  consideration  ;  and  he  most  obligingly  and 
instantly  consented  to  employ  a  great  deal  of  his  very 
valuable  time  to  write  an  explanation  of  the  bill.  I 
attended  the  committee  with  all  possible  care  and  dil- 
igence, in  order  that  every  objection  of  yours  might 
meet  with  a  solution,  or  produce  an  alteration.  I 
entreated  your  learned  recorder  (always  ready  in  busi- 
ness in  which  you  take  a  concern)  to  attend.  But 
what  will  you  say  to  those  who  blame  me  for  support- 
ing Lord  Beauchamp's  bill,  as  a  disrespectful  treat- 
ment of  your  petition,  when  you  hear,  that,  out  of 
respect  to  you,  I  myself  was  the  cause  of  the  loss  of 
that  very  bill  ?  For  the  noble  lord  who  brought  it  in, 
and  who,  I  must  say,  has  much  merit  for  this  and  some 
other  measures,  at  my  request  consented  to  put  it  oflf 
for  a  week,  which  the  Speaker's  illness  lengthened 

*  Mr.  Williams. 


384  SPEECH    AT    BRISTOL, 

to  a  fortnight ;  and  then  the  frantic  tumult  about 
Popery  drove  that  and  every  rational  business  from 
the  House.  So  that,  if  I  chose  to  make  a  defence  of 
myself,  on  the  little  principles  of  a  culprit,  pleading 
in  his  exculpation,  I  might  not  only  secure  my  ac- 
quittal, but  make  merit  with  the  opposers  of  the  bill. 
But  I  shall  do  no  such  thing.  The  truth  is,  tliat  I 
did  occasion  the  loss  of  the  bill,  and  by  a  delay  caused 
by  my  respect  to  you.  But  such  an  event  was  never 
in  my  contemplation.  And  I  am  so  far  from  taking 
credit  for  the  defeat  of  that  measure,  that  I  cannot 
sufficiently  lament  my  misfortune,  if  but  one  man, 
who  ought  to  be  at  large,  has  passed  a  year  in  prison 
by  my  means.  I  am  a  debtor  to  the  debtors.  I  con- 
fess judgment.  I  owe  what,  if  ever  it  be  in  my  power, 
I  shall  most  certainly  pay,  —  ample  afonement  and 
usurious  amends  to  liberty  and  humanity  for  my 
unhappy  lapse.  For,  Gentlemen,  Lord  Beauchamp's 
bill  was  a  law  of  justice  and  policy,  as  far  as  it  went : 
I  say,  as  far  as  it  went ;  for  its  fault  was  its  being  in 
the  remedial  part  miserably  defective. 

There  are  two  capital  faults  in  our  law  with  rela- 
tion to  civil  debts.  One  is,  that  every  man  is  pre- 
sumed solvent:  a  presumption,  in  innumerable  cases, 
directly  against  truth.  Therefore  the  debtor  is  or- 
dered, on  a*  supposition  of  ability  and  fraud,  to  be 
coerced  his  liberty  until  he  makes  payment.  By  this 
means,  in  all  cases  of  civil  insolvency,  without  a  par- 
don from  his  creditor,  he  is  to  be  imprisoned  for  li/e  ; 
and  thus  a  miserable  mistaken  invention  of  artifi- 
cial science  operates  to  change  a  civil  into  a  criminal 
judgment,  and  to  scourge  misfortune  or  indiscretion 
with  a  punishment  which  the  law  does  not  inflict  on 
the  greatest  crimes. 


PREVIOUS  TO  THE  ELECTION.         385 

The  next  fault  is,  that  the  inflicting  of  that  punish- 
ment is  not  on  the  opinion  of  an  equal  and  public 
judge,  but  is  referred  to  the  arbitrary  discretion  of 
a  private,  nay,  interested,  and  irritated,  individual. 
He,  who  formally  is,  and  substantially  ought  to  be, 
the  judge,  is  in  reality  no  more  than  ministerial,  a 
mere  executive  instrument  of  a  private  man,  who  is 
at  once  judge  and  party.  Every  idea  of  judicial  order 
is  subverted  by  this  procedure.  If  the  insolvency 
be  no  crime,  why  is  it  punislied  with  arbitrary  im- 
prisonment ?  If  it  be  a  crime,  why  is  it  delivered  in- 
to private  hands  to  pardon  without  discretion,  or  to 
punish  without  mercy  and  without  measure  ? 

To  these  faults,  gross  and  cruel  faults  in  our  law, 
the  excellent  principle  of  Lord  Beaucharap's  bill  ap- 
plied some  sort  of  remedy.  I  know  that  credit  must 
be  preserved  :  but  equity  must  be  preserved,  too  ;  and 
it  is  impossible  that  anything  should  be  necessary  to 
commerce  which  is  inconsistent  with  justice.  The 
principle  of  credit  was  not  weakened  by  that  bill.  God 
forbid  !  The  enforcement  of  that  credit  was  only  put 
into  the  same  public  judicial  hands  on  which  we  de- 
pend for  our  lives  and  all  that  makes  life  dear  to  us. 
But,  indeed,  this  business  was  taken  up  too  warmly, 
both  here  and  elsewhere.  The  bill  was  extremely 
mistaken.  It  was  supposed  to  enact  what  it  never 
enacted  ;  and  complaints  were  made  of  clauses  in  it, 
as  novelties,  which  existed  before  the  noble  lord  that 
brought  in  the  bill  was  born.  There  was  a  fallacy 
that  ran  through  the  whole  of  the  objections.  The 
gentlemen  who  opposed  the  bill  always  argued  as  if 
the  option  lay  between  that  bill  and  the  ancient  law. 
But  this  is  a  grand  mistake.  For,  practically,  the 
option  is  between  not  that  bill  and  the  old  law,  but 

VOL.  II.  25 


386  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL, 

between  that  bill  and  those  occasional  laws  called 
acts  of  grace.  For  the  operation  of  the  old  law  is  so 
savage,  and  so  inconvenient  to  society,  that  for  a  long 
time  past,  once  in  every  Parliament,  and  lately  twice, 
the  legislature  has  been  obliged  to  make  a  general 
arbitrary  jail-delivery,  and  at  once  to  set  open,  by  its 
sovereign  authority,  all  the  prisons  in  England. 

Gentlemen,  I  never  relished  acts  of  grace,  nor 
ever  submitted  to  them  but  from  despair  of  better. 
They  are  a  dishonorable  invention,  by  which,  not 
from  humanity,  not  from  policy,  but  merely  because 
we  have  not  room  enough  to  hold  these  victims  of 
the  absurdity  of  our  laws,  we  turn  loose  upon  the 
public  three  or  four  thousand  naked  wretches,  cor- 
rupted by  the  habits,  debased  by  the  ignominy  of  a 
prison.  If  the  creditor  had  a  right  to  those  carcasses 
as  a  natural  security  for  his  property,  I  am  sure  we 
have  no  right  to  deprive  him  of  that  security.  But 
if  the  few  pounds  of  flesh  were  not  necessary  to  his 
.security,  we  had  not  a  right  to  detain  the  unfortu- 
nate debtor,  without  any  benefit  at  all  to  the  person 
who  confined  him.  Take  it  as  you  will,  we  commit 
injustice.  Now  Lord  Beauchamp's  bill  intended  to 
do  deliberately,  and  with  great  caution  and  circum- 
spection, upon  each  several  case,  and  with  all  atten- 
tion to  the  just  claimant,  what  acts  of  grace  do  in 
a  much  greater  measure,  and  with  very  little  care, 
caution,  or  deliberation. 

I  suspect  that  here,  too,  if  we  contrive  to  oppose 
this  bill,  we  shall  be  found  in  a  struggle  against  the 
nature  of  things.  For,  as  we  grow  enlightened,  the 
public  will  not  bear,  for  any  length  of  time,  to  pay 
for  the  maintenance  of  whole  armies  of  prisoners, 
nor,  at  their  own  expense,  submit  to  keep  jails  as  a 


PKEYIOUS   TO    THE   ELECTION.  387 

sort  of  garrisons,  merely  to  fortify  the  absurd  princi- 
ple of  making  men  judges  in  their  own  cause.     For 
credit  has  little  or  no  concern  in  this   cruelty.     I 
speak  m  a  commercial   assembly.     You  know  that 
credit  is  given  because  capital  must  be  employed ; 
th'it  men  calculate  the  chances  of  insolvency ;  and 
thsy  either  withhold  the  credit,  or  make  the  debtor 
■p'uj  the  risk  in  the  price.     The  counting-house  has 
no  alliance  with  the  jail.     Holland  understands  trade 
as  well  as  we,  and  she  has  done  much  more  than  this 
obnoxious  bill  intended  to  do.     There  was  not,  when 
Mr.  Howard  visited  Holland,  more  than  one  prisoner 
for  debt  in  the  great  city  of  Rotterdam..     Although 
Lord  Beauchamp's  act  (which  was  previous  to  this 
bill,  and  intended  to  feel  the  way  for  it)  has  already 
preserved  liberty  to  thousands,  and  though  it  is  not 
three  years  since  the  last  act  of  grace  passed,  yet, 
by  Mr.  Howard's  last  account,  there  were  near  three 
thousand  again  in  jail.     I  cannot  name  this  gentle- 
man without  remarking  that  his  labors  and  writings 
have  done  much  to  open  the  eyes  and  hearts  of  man- 
kind.   He  has  visited  all  Europe,  —  not  to  survey  the 
sumptuousness  of  palaces  or  the  stateliness  of  tem- 
ples,  not  to   make   accurate   measurements   of  the 
remains  of  ancient  grandeur  nor  to  form  a  scale  of 
the  curiosity  of  modern  art,  not  to  collect  medals  or 
collate  manuscripts,  —  but  to  dive  into  the  depths  of 
dungeons,  to  plunge  into  the  infection  of  hospitals, 
to  survey  the  mansions  of  sorrow  and  pain,  to  take 
the  gauge  and  dimensions  of  misery,  depression,  and 
contempt,  to  remember  the  forgotten,  to  attend  to 
the  neglected,  to  visit  the  forsaken,  and  to  compare 
and  collate  the  distresses  of  all  men  in  all  countries. 
His  plan  is  original ;  and  it  is  as  full  of  genius  as  it 


388  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL, 

is  of  humanity.  It  was  a  voyage  of  discovery,  a  cir- 
cumnavigation of  charity.  Already  the  benefit  of  liis 
labor  is  felt  more  or  less  in  every  country ;  I  hope 
he  will  anticipate  his  final  reward  by  seeing  all  its 
effects  fully  realized  in  his  own.  He  will  receive, 
not  by  retail,  but  in  gross,  the  reward  of  those  who 
visit  the  prisoner ;  and  he  has  so  forestalled  and  mo- 
nopolized this  branch  of  charity,  that  there  will  be, 
I  trust,  little  room  to  merit  by  such  acts  of  benevo- 
lence hereafter. 

Nothing  now  remains  to  trouble  you  with  but  the 
fourth  charge  against  me,  —  the  business  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholics.  It  is  a  business  closely  connected 
w^ith  the  rest.  They  are  all  on  one  and  the  same 
principle.  My  little  scheme  of  conduct,  such  as  it  is, 
is  all  arranged.  I  could  do  nothing  but  what  I  have 
done  on  this  subject,  without  confounding  the  whole 
train  of  my  ideas  and  disturbing  the  whole  order 
of  my  life.  Gentlemen,  I  ought  to  apologize  to  you 
for  seeming  to  think  anything  at  all  necessary  to  be 
said  upon  this  matter.  The  calumny  is  fitter  to  be 
scrawled  with  the  midniglit  chalk  of  incendiaries, 
with  "  No  Popery,"  on  walls  and  doors  of  devoted 
houses,  than  to  be  mentioned  in  any  civilized  com- 
pany. I  had  heard  that  the  spirit  of  discontent  on 
that  subject  was  very  prevalent  here.  With  pleas- 
ure I  find  that  I  have  been  grossly  misinformed.  If 
it  exists  at  all  in  this  city,  the  laws  have  crushed  its 
exertions,  and  our  morals  have  shamed  its  appear- 
ance in  daylight.  I  have  pursued  this  spii'it  wher- 
ever I  could  trace  it ;  but  it  still  fled  from  me.  It 
was  a  ghost  which  all  had  heard  of,  but  none  had 
seen.  None  would  acknowledge  tliat  he  thought  the 
public  proceeding  with  regard  to  our  Catholic  dis- 


PREVIOUS  TO  THE  ELECTION.  389 

senters  to  be  blainable  ;  but  several  were  sorry  it  had 
made  an  ill  impression  upon  others,  and  that  my 
interest  was  hurt  by  my  share  in  ttie  business.     I 
find  with  satisfaction  and  pride,  that  not  above  four 
or  five  in  this  city  (and  I  dare  say  these  misled  by 
some  gross  misrepresentation)  have  signed  that  sym- 
bol of  delusion  and  bond  of  sedition,  that  libel  on  the 
national  religion  and  English  character,  the  Protes- 
tant Association.     It  is,  therefore,  Gentlemen,  not  by 
way  of  cure,  but  of  prevention,  and  lest  the  arts  of 
wicked  men  may  prevail  over  the  integrity  of  any 
one  amongst  us,  that  I  think  it  necessary  to  open  to 
you  the  merits  of  this   transaction  pretty  much  at 
large ;   and  I   beg  your   patience  upon  it :   for,  al- 
though the  reasonings  that  have  been  used  to  de- 
preciate the  act  are  of  little  force,  and  though  the 
authority  of  the  men  concerned  in  this  ill  design  is 
not  very  imposing,  yet  the   audaciousness  of  these 
conspirators  against  the  national  honor,  and  the  ex- 
tensive wickedness  of  their  attempts,  have  raised  per- 
sons of  little  importance  to  a  degree  of  evil  eminence, 
and  imparted  a  sort  of  sinister  dignity  to  proceedings 
that  had  their  origin  in  only  the  meanest  and  blind- 
est malice. 

In  explaining  to  you  the  proceedings  of  Parliament 
which  have  been  complained  of,  I  will  state  to  you, 
—  first,  the  thing  that  was  done,  —  next,  the  persons 
who  did  it,  —  and  lastly,  the  grounds  and  reasons 
upon  which  the  legislature  proceeded  in  this  deliber- 
ate act  of  public  justice  and  public  prudence. 

Gentlemen,  the  condition  of  our  nature  is  such 
that  we  buy  our  blessings  at  a  price.  The  Reforma- 
tion, one  of  the  greatest  periods  of  human  improve- 
ment, was  a  time  of  trouble  and  confusion.     'Hie  vast 


390  SPEECH    AT   BRISTOL 


structure  of  superstition  and  tyranny  which  had  been 
for  ages  in  rearing,  and  which  was  combined  with 
the  interest  of  the  great  and  of  the  many,  which  was 
moulded  into  the  laws,  the  manners,  and  civil  insti- 
tutions of  nations,  and  blended  with  the  frame  and 
policy  of  states,  could  not  be  brought  to  the  ground 
without  a  fearful  struggle ;  nor  could  it  fall  without 
a  violent  concussion  of  itself  and  all  about  it.  When 
this  great  revolution  was  attempted  in  a  more  regular 
mode  by  government,  it  was  opposed  by  plots  and  se- 
ditions of  the  people  ;  when  by  popular  efforts,  it  was 
repressed  as  rebellion  by  the  hand  of  power ;  and 
bloody  executions  (often  bloodily  returned)  marked 
the  whole  of  its  progress  through  all  its  stages.  The 
affairs  of  religion,  which  are  no  longer  heard  of  in  the 
tumult  of  our  present  contentions,  made  a  principal 
ingredient  in  the  wars  and  politics  of  that  time  :  the 
enthusiasm  of  religion  threw  a  gloom  over  the  politics ; 
and  political  interests  poisoned  and  perverted  the  spirit 
of  religion  upon  all  sides.  The  Protestant  religion,  in 
that  violent  struggle,  infected,  as  the  Popish  had  been 
before,  by  worldly  interests  and  worldly  passions,  be- 
came a  persecutor  in  its  turn,  sometimes  of  the  new 
sects,  which  carried  their  own  principles  further  than 
it  was  convenient  to  the  original  reformers,  and  al- 
ways of  the  body  from  whom  they  parted  :  and  this 
persecuting  spirit  arose,  not  only  from  the  bitterness 
of  retaliation,  but  from  the  merciless  policy  of  fear. 

It  was  long  before  the  spirit  of  true  piety  and  true 
wisdom,  involved  in  the  principles  of  the  Reformation, 
could  be  depurated  from  the  dregs  and  feculence  of 
the  contention  with  which  it  was  carried  through. 
However,  until  this  be  done,  the  Reformation  is  not 
complete ;    and   those   who   think   themselves   good 


PREVIOUS  TO  THE  ELECTION.         391 

Protestants,  from  their  animosity  to  others,  are  in 
that  respect  no  Protestants  at  all.  It  was  at  first 
thought  necessary",  perhaps,  to  oppose  to  Popery  an- 
other Popery,  to  get  the  better  of  it.  Whatever  was 
the  cause,  laws  were  made  in  many  countries,  and  in 
this  kingdom  in  particular,  against  Papists,  which  are 
as  bloody  as  any  of  those  which  had  been  enacted  by 
the  Popish  princes  and  states  :  and  where  those  laws 
were  not  bloody,  in  my  opinion,  they  were  worse  ;  as 
they  were  slow,  cruel  outrages  on,  our  nature,  and 
kept  men  alive  only  to  insult  in  their  persons  every 
one  of  the  rights  and  feelings  of  humanity.  I  pass 
those  statutes,  because  I  woufd  spare  your  pious  ears 
the  repetition  of  such  shocking  things  ;  and  I  come 
to  that  particular  law  the  repeal  of  which  has  pro- 
duced so  many  unnatural  and  unexpected  conse- 
quences. 

A  statute  was  fabricated  in  the  year  1699,  by  which 
the  saying  mass  (a  church  service  in  the  Latin  tongue, 
not  exactly  the  same  as  our  liturgy,  but  very  near  it, 
and  containing  no, offence  whatsoever  against  the  laws, 
or  against  good  morals)  was  forged  into  a  crime,  pun- 
ishable with  perpetual  imprisonment.  The  teaching 
school,  an  useful  and  virtuous  occupation,  even  the 
teaching  in  a  private  family,  was  in  every  Catholic 
suljjected  to  the  same  unproportioned  punishment. 
Your  industry,  and  the  bread  of  your  children,  was 
taxed  for  a  pecuniary  reward  to  stimulate  avarice 
to  do  what  Nature  refused,  to  inform  and  prosecute 
on  this  law.  Every  Roman  Catholic  was,  under  the- 
same  act,  to  forfeit  his  estate  to  his  nearest  Protes- 
tant relation,  until,  through  a  profession  of  what  he 
did  not  believe,  he  redeemed  by  his  hypocrisy  what 
the  law  had  transferred  to  the  kinsman  as  the  recom- 


o92  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL, 

pense  of  his  profligacy.  When  thus  turned  out  of 
doors  from  his  paternal  estate,  he  was  disabled  from 
acquiring  any  other  by  any  industry,  donation,  or 
charity ;  but  was  rendered  a  foreigner  in  his  native 
land,  only  because  he  retained  the  religion,  along 
with  the  property,  handed  down  to  him  from  those 
who  had  been  the  old  inhabitants  of  that  land  before 
him. 

Does  any  one  who  hears  me  approve  this  scheme 
of  things,  or  think  there  is  common  justice,  common 
sense,  or  common  honesty  in  any  part  of  it  ?  If  any 
does,  let  him  say  it,  and  I  am  ready  to  discuss  the 
point  with  temper  and  candor.  But  instead  of  ap- 
proving, 1  perceive  a  virtuous  indignation  beginning 
to  rise  in  your  minds  on  the  mere  cold  stating  of  the 
statute. 

But  what  will  you  feel,  when  you  know  from  his- 
tory how  this  statute  passed,  and  what  were  the  mo- 
tives, and  what  the  mode  of  making  it  ?  A  party  in 
this  nation,  enemies  to  the  system  of  the  Revolution, 
were  in  opposition  to  the  government  of  King  Wil- 
liam. They  knew  that  our  glorious  deliverer  was  au 
enemy  to  all  persecution.  They  knew  that  he  came 
to  free  us  from  slavery  and  Popery,  out  of  a  country 
where  a  third  of  the  people  are  contented  Catholics 
under  a  Protestant  government.  He  came  with  a 
part  of  his  army  composed  of  those  very  Catholics,  to 
overset  the  power  of  a  Popish  prince.  Such  is  the 
effect  of  a  tolerating  spirit ;  and  so  much  is  liberty 
served  in  every  way,  and  by  a}l  persons,  by  a  manly 
adherence  to  its  own  principles.  Whilst  freedom  is 
true  to  itself,  everything  becomes  subject  to  it,  and 
its  very  adversaries  are  an  instrument  in  its  hands. 

The  party  I  speak  of  ( like  some  amongst  us  who 


PREVIOUS   TO    THE   ELECTION.  393 

wuiild  disparage  the  best  friends  of  their  country) 
resolved  to  make  the  king  either  violate  his  principles 
of  toleration  or  incur  the  odium  of  protecting  Papists. 
They  therefore  brought  in  this  bill,  and  made  it  pur- 
posely wicked  and  absurd  that  it  might  be  rejected. 
The  then  court  party,  discovering  their  game,  turned 
tlie  tables  on  them,  and  returned  their  bill  to  them 
stuffed  with  still  greater  absurdities,  that  its  loss 
might  lie  upon  its  original  authors.  They,  finding 
their  own  ball  thrown  back  to  them,  kicked  it  back 
again  to  their  adversaries.  And  thus  this  act,  loaded 
with  the  double  injustice  of  two  parties,  neither  of 
whom  intended  to  pass  what  they  hoped  the  othei 
would  be  persuaded  to  reject,  went  through  the  legis- 
lature, contrary  to  the  real  wish  of  all  parts  of  it,  and 
of  all  the  parties  that  composed  it.  In  this  manncT 
these  insolent  and  profligate  factions,  as  if  they  were 
playing  with  balls  and  counters,  made  a  sport  of  thft 
fortunes  and  the  liberties  of  their  fellow-creatures- 
Other  acts  of  persecution  have  been  acts  of  malice. 
This  was  a  subversion  of  justice  from  wantonness  and 
petulance.  Look  into  the  history  of  Bishop  Burnet. 
He  is  a  witness  without  exception. 

The  effects  of  the  act  have  been  as  mischievous  aa 
its  orio-in  was  ludicrous  and  shameful.  From  that 
time,  every  person  of  that  communion,  lay  and  eccle- 
siastic, has  been  obliged  to  fly  from  the  face  of  day. 
Tlie  clergy,  concealed  in  garrets  of  private  houses,  or 
ol)liged  to  take  a  shelter  (hardly  safe  to  themselves, 
but  infinitely  dangerous  to  their  country)  under  the 
privileges  of  foreign  ministers,  officiated  as  their  ser- 
vants and  under  their  protection.  The  whole  body 
of  the  Catholics,  condemned  to  beggary  and  to  igno- 
rance in  their  native  land,  have  been  obliged  to  learn 


394  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL 


the  principles  of  letters,  at  the  hazard  of  all  their 
other  principles,  from  the  charity  of  your  enemies. 
They  have  been  taxed  to  their  ruin  at  tlie  pleasure  of 
necessitous  and  profligate  relations,  and  according  to 
the  measure  of  their  necessity  and  profligacy.  Exam- 
ples of  this  are  many  and  affecting.  Some  of  them 
are  known  by  a  friend  who  stands  near  me  in  this 
hall.  It  is\)ut  six  or  seven  years  since  a  clergyman, 
of  the  name  of  Malony,  a  man  of  morals,  neither 
guilty  nor  accused  of  anything'  noxious  to  the  state, 
was  condemned  to  perpetual  imprisonment  for  exer- 
cising the  functions  of  his  religion  ;  and  after  lying 
in  jail  two  or  three  years,  was  relieved  by  the  mercy 
of  government  from  perpetual  imprisonment,  on  con- 
dition of  perpetual  banishment.  A  brother  of  the 
Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  a  Talbot,  a  name  respectable  in 
this  country  whilst  its  glory  is  any  part  of  its  concern, 
was  hauled  to  the  bar  of  the  Old  Bailey,  among  com- 
mon felons,  and  only  escaped  the  same  doom,  either 
by  some  error  in  the  process,  or  that  the  wretch  who 
brought  him  there  could  not  correctly  describe  his  per- 
son,—  I  now  forget  which.  In  short,  the  persecution 
would  never  have  relented  for  a  moment,  if  the  judges, 
superseding  (though  with  an  ambiguous  example)  the 
strict  rule  of  their  artificial  duty  by  the  higher  obli- 
gation of  their  conscience,  did  not  constantly  throw 
every  difficulty  in  the  way  of  such  informers.  But 
so  ineffectual  is  the  power  of  legal  evasion  against 
legal  iniquity,  that  it  was  bu.t  the  other  day  that  a 
lady  of  condition,  beyond  the  middle  of  life,  was  on 
the  point  of  being  stripped  of  her  whole  fortune  by 
a  near  relation  to  whom  she  had  been  a  friend  and 
benefactor ;  and  slie  must  have  been  totally  ruined, 
without  a  power  of  redress  or  mitigation  from  the 


PREVIOUS   TO    THE    ELECTION.  895 

courts  of  law,  had  not  the  legislature  itself  rushed  in, 
and  by  a  special  act  of  Parliament  rescued  her  from 
the  injustice  of  its  own  statutes.  One  of  the  acts  au- 
thorizing such  tilings  was  that  which  we  in  part  re- 
pealed, knowing  what  our  duty  was,  and  doing  that 
duty  as  men  of  honor  and  virtue,  as  good  Protestants, 
and  as  good  citizens.  Let  him  stand  forth  that  dis- 
approves what  we  have  done  ! 

Gentlemen,  bad  laws  are  the  worst  sort  of  tyranny. 
In  such  a  country  as  this  they  are  of  all  bad  things  the 
worst,  —  worse  by  far  than  anywhere  else;  and  they, 
derive  a  particular  malignity  even  from  the  wisdom 
and  soundness  of  the  rest  of  our  institutions.  For 
very  obvious  reasons  you  cannot  trust  the  crown  with 
a  dispensing  power  over  any  of  your  laws.  However, 
a  government,  be  it  as  bad  as  it  may,  will,  in  the  exer- 
cise of  a  discretionary  power,  discriminate  times  and 
persons,  and  will  not  ordinarily  pursue  any  man, 
when  its  own  safety  is  not  concerned.  A  mercenary 
informer  knows  no  distinction.  Under  such  a  sys- 
tem, the  obnoxious  people  are  slaves  not  only  to  the 
government,  but  they  live  at  the  mercy  of  every 
individual ;  they  are  at  once  the  slaves  of  the  whole 
community  and  of  every  part  of  it ;  and  the  worst 
and  most  unmerciful  men  are  those  on  whose  good- 
ness they  most  depend. 

In  this  situation,  men  not  only  shrink  from  the 
frowns  of  a  stern  magistrate,  but  they  are  obliged  to 
fly  from  their  very  species.  The  seeds  of  destruction 
are  sown  in  civil  intercourse,  in  social  habitudes. 
Tlic  blood  of  wholesome  kindred  is  infected.  Their 
tables  and  beds  are  surrounded  with  snares.  All  the 
means  given  by  Providence  to  make  life  safe  and 
comfoi  table  are  perverted  into  instruments  of  terror 


396  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL, 

and  torment.  This  species  of  universal  siibserviency, 
that  makes  the  very  servant  who  waits  behind  your 
chair  the  arbiter  of  your  life  and  fortune,  has  such  a 
tendency  to  degrade  and  abase  mankind,  and  to  de- 
prive them  of  tliat  assured  and  liberal  state  of  mind 
which  alone  can  make  us  what  we  ought  to  be,  that 
I  vow  to  God  I  would  sooner  bring  myself  to  put  a 
man  to  immediate  death  for  opinions  I  disliked,  and 
so  to  get  rid  of  the  man  and  his  opinions  at  once, 
than  to  fret  him  with  a  feverish  being,  tainted  with 
the  jail-distemper  of  a  contagious  servitude,  to  keep 
him  above  ground  an  animated  mass  of  putrefaction, 
corrupted  himself,  and  corrupting  all  about  him. 

The  act  repealed  was  of  this  direct  tendency  ;  and 
it  was  made  in  the  manner  which  I  have  related  to 
you.  I  will  now  tell  you  by  whom  the  bill  of  repeal 
was  brought  into  Parliament.  I  find  it  has  been  in- 
dustriously given  out  in  this  city  (from  kindness  to 
me,  unquestionably)  that  I  was  the  mover  or  the  sec 
onder.  The  fact  is,  I  did  not  once  open  my  lips  on 
the  subject  during  the  whole  progress  of  the  bill.  I 
do  not  say  this  as  disclaiming  my  share  in  that  meas- 
ure. Yery  far  from  it.  I  inform  you  of  this  fact, 
lest  I  should  seem  to  arrogate  to  myself  the  merits 
which  belong  to  others.  To  have  been  the  man 
chosen  out  to  redeem  our  fellow-citizens  from  sla- 
very, to  purify  our  laws  from  absurdity  and  injus- 
tice, and  to  cleanse  our  religion  from  the  blot  and 
stain  of  persecution,  would  be  an  honor  and  happi- 
ness to  which  my  wishes  would  undoubtedly  aspire, 
but  to  which  nothing  but  my  wishes  could  possibly 
have  entitled  me.  That  great  work  was  in  hands  in 
every  respect  far  better  qualified  than  mine.  The 
movor  of  the  bill  was  Sir  George  Savile. 


PREVIOUS   TO   THE   ELECTION.  897 

Wlieii  an  act  of  great  and  signal  luimanity  was  to 
be  done,  and  done  with  all  the  weight  and  authority 
that  belonged  to  it,  the  world  could  cast  its  eyes  upon 
none  but  liim.     1  hope  that  few  things  which  have  a 
tendency  to  bless  or  to  adorn  life  have  wholly  escaped 
my  observation  in  my  passage  through  it.     I  have 
sought  the  acquaintance  of  that  gentleman,  and  have 
seen  him  in  all  situations.    He  is  a  true  genius  ;  with 
an  understanding  vigorous,  and  acute,  and  refined, 
and  distinguishing  even  to  excess  ;  and  illuminated 
with  a  most  unbounded,  peculiar,  and  original  cast 
of  imagination.    With  these  he  possesses  many  exter- 
nal and  instrumental  advantages  ;  and  he  makes  use 
of  them  all.     His  fortune  is  among  the  largest,  —  a 
fortune  which,  wholly  unincumbered   as  it  is  with 
one   single  charge  from  luxury,  vanity,  or   excess, 
sinks  under  the  benevolence  of  its  dispenser.     This 
private  benevolence,  expanding  itself  into  patriotism, 
renders  his  wliole  being  the  estate  of  the  public,  in 
which  he  has  not  reserved  a  peculium  for  himself  of 
profit,  diversion,  or  relaxation.     During  the  session 
the  first  in  and  the  last  out  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, he  passes  from  the  senate  to  the  camp ;  and 
seldom  seeing  the  seat  of  his  ancestors,  he  is  always 
in  Parliament  to  serve  his  country  or  in  the  field  to 
defend  it.     But  in  all  well-wrought  compositions  some 
particulars  stand  out  more  eminently  than  the  rest ; 
and  the  things  which  will  carry  his  name  to  posterity 
arc  his  two  bills  :  I  mean  that  for  a  limitation  of  the 
claims  of  the  crown  upon  landed  estates,  and  this  for 
the  relief  of  the  Roman  Catholics.     By  the  former  he 
has  emancipated  property ;  by  the  latter  he  has  qui- 
eted conscience ;   and  b^   both  he  has   taught  that 
grand  lesson  to  government  and  subject,  —  no  longer 
to  regard  each  other  as  adverse  parties. 


398  SPEECH  AT   BRISTOL, 

Such  "was  tlie  mover  of  tlie  act  that  is  complained 
of  by  men  who  are  not  quite  so  good  as  he  is,  —  an 
act  most  assuredly  not  brought  in  by  him  from  any 
partiality  to  that  sect  which  is  the  object  of  it.  For 
among  his  faults  I  really  cannot  help  reckoning  a 
greater  degree  of  prejudice  against  that  people  tlian 
becomes  so  wise  a  man.  I  know  that  he  inclines  to 
a  sort  of  disgust,  mixed  with  a  considerable  degree  of 
asperity,  to  the  system ;  and  he  has  few,  or  rather  no 
habits  with  any  of  its  professors.  What  he  has  done 
was  on  quite  other  motives.  The  motives  were  these, 
which  he  declared  in  his  excellent  speech  on  his 
motion  for  the  bill :  namely,  his  extreme  zeal  to  the 
Protestant  religion,  which  he  thought  utterly  dis- 
graced by  the  act  of  1699  ;  and  his  rooted  hatred  to 
all  kind  of  oppression,  under  any  color,  or  upon  any 
pretence  whatsoever. 

The  seconder  was  worthy  of  the  mover  and  the 
motion.  I  was  not  the  seconder ;  it  was  Mr.  Dun- 
ning, recorder  of  this  city.  I  shall  say  the  less  of 
him  because  his  near  relation  to  you  makes  you 
more  particularly  acquainted  with  his  merits.  But  I 
should  appear  little  acquainted  with  them,  or  little 
sensible  of  them,  if  I  could  utter  his  name  on  this 
occasion  without  expressing  my  esteem  for  his  char- 
acter. I  am  not  afraid  of  offending  a  most  learned 
body,  and  most  jealous  of  its  reputation  for  that 
learning,  when  I  say  he  is  the  first  of  his  profession. 
•It  is  a  point  settled  by  those  w^ho  settle  everything 
else ;  and  I  must  add  (what  I  am  enabled  to  say 
from  my  own  long  and  close  observation)  that  there 
is  not  a  man,  of  any  profession,  or  in  any  situation, 
of  a  more  erect  and  independent  spirit,  of  a  more 
proud    honor,   a  more    manly   mind,   a  more   firm 


PEEVIOUS   TO   THE   ELECTION.  399 

and  determined  integrity.  Assure  yourselves,  that 
the  names  of  two  such  men  will  bear  a  great  load  of 
prejudice  in  the  other  scale  before  they  can  be  en- 
tirely outweighed. 

With  this  mover  and  this  seconder  agreed  the  wliole 
House  of  Commons,  the  ivliole  House  of  Lords,  the 
ivhole  Bench  of  Bishops,  the  king,  the  ministry,  the 
opposition,  all  the  distinguished  clergy  of  the  Estab- 
lishment, all  the  eminent  lights  (for  they  were  con- 
sulted) of  the  dissenting  churches.  This  according 
voice  of  national  wisdom  ought  to  be  listened  to  with 
reverence.  To  say  that  all  these  descriptions  of  Eng- 
lishmen unanimously  concurred  in  a  scheme  for  in- 
troducing the  Catholic  religion,  or  that  none  of  them 
understood  the  nature  and  effects  of  what  they  were 
doing  so  well  as  a  few  obscure  clubs  of  people  whose 
names  you  never  heard  of,  is  shamelessly  absurd. 
Surely  it  is  paying  a  miserable  compliment  to  the  re- 
ligion we  profess,  to  suggest  that  everything  emhient 
in  the  kingdom  is  indifferent  or  even  adverse  to  that 
religion,  and  that  its  security  is  wholly  abandoned  to 
the  zeal  of  those  who  have  nothing  but  their  zeal  to 
distinguish  them.  In  weighing  this  unanimous  con- 
currence of  whatever  the  nation  has  to  boast  of,  I 
hope  you  will  recollect  that  all  these  concurring  par- 
ties do  by  no  means  love  one  another  enough  to  agree 
in  any  point  which  was  not  both  evidently  and  im- 
portantly riglit. 

To  prove  this,  to  prove  that  the  measure  was  both 
clearly  and  materially  proper,  I  will  next  lay  before 
you  (as  I  promised)  the  political  grounds  and  reasons 
for  the  repeal  of  that  penal  statute,  and  tlie  motives  to 
its  repeal  at  that  particular  time. 

Gentlemen,  America When  the  English  nation 


400  SPEECH   AT  BRISTOL, 

seemed  to  be  dangerously,  if  not  irrecoverably  divid- 
ed,—  when  one,  and  that  the  most  growing  branch, 
was  torn  from  the  parent  stock,  and  ingrafted  on  the 
power  of  France,  a  great  terror  fell  upon  this  kingdom. 
On  a  sudden  we  awakened  from  our  dreams  of  con- 
quest, and  saw  ourselves  threatened  with  an  imme- 
diate invasion,  which  we  were  at  that  time  very  ill 
prepared  to  resist.  You  remember  the  cloud  that 
gloomed  over  us  all.  In  that  hour  of  our  dismay, 
from  the  bottom  of  the  hiding-places  into  which  the 
indiscriminate  rigor  of  our  statutes  had  driven  them, 
came  out  the  body  of  the  Roman  Catholics.  They  ap- 
peared before  the  steps  of  a  tottering  throne,  with  one 
of  the  most  sober,  measured,  steady,  and  dutiful  ad- 
dresses that  was  ever  presented  to  the  crown.  It  was 
no  holiday  ceremony,  no  anniversary  compliment  of 
parade  and  show.  It  was  signed  by  almost  every 
gentleman  of  that  persuasion,  of  note  or  property,  in 
England.  At  such  a  crisis,  nothing  but  a  decided 
resolution  to  stand  or  fall  with  their  country  could 
have  dictated  such  an  address,  the  direct  tendency  of 
which  was  to  cut  off  all  retreat,  and  to  render  them 
peculiarly  obnoxious  to  an  invader  of  their  own  com- 
munion. The  address  showed  what  I  long  languished 
to  see,  that  all  the  subjects  of  England  had  cast  off  all 
foreign  views  and  connections,  and  that  every  man 
looked  for  his  relief  from  every  grievance  at  the 
hands  only  of  his  own  natural  government. 

It  was  necessary,  on  our  part,  that  the  natural 
government  should  show  itself  worthy  of  that  name. 
It  was  necessary,  at  the  crisis  I  speak  of,  that  the 
supreme  power  of  the  state  should  meet  the  concilia- 
tory dispositions  of  the  subject.  To  delay  protection 
would  be  to  reject  allegiance.     And  why  should  it 


PREYIOUS  TO  THE  ELECTION.         401 

be  rejected,  or  even  coldly  and  suspiciously  received  ? 
If  any  independent  Catholic  state  should  choose  to 
take  part  with  this  kingdom  in  a  war  with  France 
and  Spain,  that  bigot  (if  such  a  bigot  could  be  found) 
would  be  heard  with  little  respect,  who  could  dream 
of  objecting  his  religion  to  an  ally  whom  the  nation 
would  not  only  receive  with  its  freest  thanks,  but 
purchase  with  the  last  remains  of  its  exhausted  treas- 
ure. To  such  an  ally  we  should  not  dare  to  whisper 
a  single  syllable  of  tliose  base  and  invidious  topics 
upon  which  some  unhappy  men  would  persuade  the 
state  to  reject  the  duty  and  allegiance  of  its  own 
members.  Is  it,  then,  because  foreigners  are  in  a  con- 
dition to  set  our  malice  at  defiance,  that  with  them 
we  are  willing  to  contract  engagements  of  friendship, 
and  to  keep  them  with  fidelity  and  honor,  but  that, 
because  we  conceive  some  descriptions  of  our  coun- 
trymen are  not  powerful  enough  to  punish  our  malig- 
uity,  we  will  not  permit  them  to  support  our  common 
interest  ?  Is  it  on  that  ground  that  our  anger  is  to 
be  kindled  by  their  offered  kindness  ?  Is  it  on  that 
ground  that  they  are  to  be  subjected  to  penalties, 
because  they  are  willing  by  actual  merit  to  purge 
themselves  from  imputed  crimes  ?  Lest  by  an  adher- 
ence to  the  cause  of  their  country  they  should  acquire 
a  title  to  fair  and  equitable  treatment,  are  we  resolved 
to  furnish  them  with  causes  of  eternal  enmity,  and 
rather  supply  them  with  just  and  founded  motives  to 
disaffection  than  not  to  have  that  disaffection  in  exist- 
ence to  justify  an  oppression  Avhich,  not  from  jjolicy, 
but  disposition,  we  have  predetermined  to  exercise? 

"What  shadow  of  reason  could  be  assigned,  why,  at 
a  time  when  the  most  Protestant  part  of  this  Protes- 
tant empire  found  it  for  its  advantage  to  unite  with 

VOL.  II.  26 


402  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL, 

the  two  principal  Popish  states,  to  unite  itself  in  the 
closest  bonds  with  France  and  Spain,  for  our  destruc- 
tion, that  we  should  refuse  to  unite  with  our  own  Catli- 
olic  countrymen  for  our  own  preservation  ?  Ought 
we,  like  madmen,  to  tear  oif  the  plasters  that  the  leni- 
ent hand  of  prudence  had  spread  over  the  wounds 
and  gashes  which  in  our  delirium  of  ambition  we  had 
given  to  our  own  body  ?  No  person  ever  reprobated 
the  American  war  more  than  I  did,  and  do,  and  ever 
shall.  But  I  never  will  consent  that  we  should  lay 
additional,  voluntary  penalties  on  ourselves,  for  a 
fault  which  carries  but  too  mucli  of  its  own  punish- 
ment in  its  own  nature.  For  one,  I  was  delighted 
with  the  proposal  of  internal  peace.  I  accepted  the 
blessing  with  thankfulness  and  transport.  I  was  truly 
happy  to  find  one  good  effect  of  our  civil  distractions : 
that  they  had  put  an  end  to  all  religious  strife  and 
heart-burning  in  our  own  bowels.  What  must  be  the 
sentiments  of  a  man  who  would  wish  to  perpetuate 
domestic  hostility  when  the  causes  of  dispute  are 
at  an  end,  and  who,  crying  out  for  peace  with  one 
part  of  the  nation  on  the  most  humiliating  terms, 
should  deny  it  to  those  who  offer  friendship  without 
any  terms  at  all  ? 

But  if  I  was  unable  to  reconcile  such  a  denial  to  the 
contracted  principles  of  local  duty,  what  answer  could 
I  give  to  the  broad  claims  of  general  humanity  ?  I 
confess  to  you  freely,  that  the  sufferings  and  dis- 
tresses of  the  people  of  America  in  this  cruel  war 
have  at  times  affected  me  more  deeply  than  I  can  ex- 
press. I  felt  every  gazette  of  triumph  as  a  blow  upon 
my  heart,  which  has  an  hundred  times  sunk  and  faint- 
ed within  me  at  all  the  mischiefs  brouglit  upon  tliose 
who  bear  the  whole  brunt  of  war  in  the  heart  of  their 


PEEVIOUS  TO  THE  ELECTION.         403 

country.  Yet  the  Americans  are  utter  strangers  to 
me  ;  a  nation  among  whom  I  am  not  sure  that  I  have 
a  single  acquaintance.  Was  I  to  suffer  my  mind  to  be 
so  unaccountably  warped,  was  I  to  keep  such  iniqui- 
tous weights  and  measures  of  temper  and  of  reason, 
as  to  sympathize  witli  those  who  are  in  open  rebellion 
against  an  authority  which  I  respect,  at  war  with  a 
country  which  by  every  title  ought  to  be,  and  is,  most 
dear  to  me,  —  and  yet  to  have  no  feeling  at  all  for  the 
hardships  and  indignities  suffered  by  men  who  by 
their  very  vicinity  are  bound  up  in  a  nearer  relation 
to  us,  who  contribute  their  share,  and  more  than 
their  share,  to  the  common  prosperity,  who  perform 
the  common  offices  of  social  life,  and  who  obey  the 
laws,  to  the  full  as  well  as  I  do  ?  Gentlemen,  the 
danger  to  the  state  being  out  of  the  question,  (of 
which,  let  me  tell  3''ou,  statesmen  themselves  are  apt 
to  have  but  too  exquisite  a  sense,)  I  could  assign  no 
one  reason  of  justice,  policy,  or  feeling,  for  not  con- 
curring most  cordially,  as  most  cordially  I  did  con- 
cur, in  softening  some  part  of  that  shameful  servitude 
under  which  several  of  my  worthy  fellow-citizens  were 
groaning.  ♦ 

Important  effects  followed  this  act  of  wisdom.  They 
appeared  at  home  and  abroad,  to  the  great  benefit  of 
this  kingdom,  and,  let  me  hope,  to  the  advantage  of 
mankind  at  large.  It  betokened  union  among  our- 
selves. It  .showed  soundness,  even  on  the  part  of  the 
persecuted,  which  generally  is  the  weak  side  of  CAcry 
community.  But  its  most  essential  operation  was  not 
in  England.  The  act  was  immediately,  though  very 
imperfectly,  copied  in  Ireland  ;  and  this  imperfect 
transcript  of  an  imperfect  act,  lliis  first  faint  sketch 
of  toleration,  which  did  little  more  than  disclose  a 


40-1  SPEECH    AT    BRISTOL 


principle  and  mark  out  a  disposition,  completed  in 
a  most  wonderful  manner  the  reunion  to  the  state 
of  all  the  Catholics  of  that  country.  It  made  us  what 
we  ought  always  to  have  been,  one  family,  one  body, 
one  heart  and  soul,  against  the  family  combination 
and  all  other  combinations  of  our  enemies.  We  have, 
indeed,  obligations  to  that  people,  who  received  such 
small  benefits  with  so  much  gratitude,  and  for  which 
gratitude  and  attachment  to  us  I  am  afraid  they  have 
suffered  not  a  little  in  other  places. 

I  dare  say  you  have  all  heard  of  the  privileges 
indulged  to  the  Irish  Catholics  residing  in  Spain. 
You  have  likewise  heard  with  what  circumstances  of 
severity  they  have  been  lately  expelled  from  the  sea- 
ports of  that  kingdom,  driven  into  the  inland  cities, 
and  thei'e  detained  as  a  sort  of  prisoners  of  state.  I 
have  good  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  the  zeal  to  our 
government  and  our  cause  (somewhat  indiscreetly 
expressed  in  one  of  the  addresses  of  the  Catholics  of 
Ireland)  which  has  thus  drawn  down  on  their  heads 
the  indignation  of  the  court  of  Madrid,  to  the  inex- 
pressible loss  of  several  individuals,  and,  in  future, 
perhaps  to  the  great  detriment  of  the  whole  of  their 
body.  Now  that  our  people  should  be  persecuted  in 
Spain  for  their  attachment  to  this  country,  and  per- 
secuted in  this  country  for  their  supposed  enmity  to 
us,  is  such  a  jarring  reconciliation  of  contradictory 
distresses,  is  a  thing  at  once  so  dreadful  and  ridicu- 
lous ,  that  no  malice  short  of  diabolical  would  wish  to 
continue  any  human  creatures  in  such  a  situation. 
But  honest  men  will  not  forget  either  their  merit  or 
their  sufferings.  There  are  men  (and  many,  I  trust, 
there  are)  who,  out  of  love  to  their  country  and  their 
kind,  would  torture  their  invention  to  find  excuses 


PEEVIOUS   TO   THE   ELECTION.  405 

for  tlie  mistakes  of  their  brethren,  and  who,  to  stifle 
dissension,  would  construe  even  doubtful  appearances 
with  the  utmost  favor  :  such  men  will  never  persuade 
themselves  to  be  ingenious  and  refined  in  discover- 
ing disaffection  and  treason  in  the  manifest,  palpable 
signs  of  suffering  loyalty.  Persecution  is  so  unnat- 
ural to  them,  that  they  gladly  snatch  the  very  first 
opportunity  of  laying  aside  all  the  tricks  and  devices 
of  penal  politics,  and  of  returning  home,  after  all 
their  irksome  and  vexatious  wanderings,  to  our  natu- 
ral family  mansion,  to  the  grand  social  principle  that 
unites  all  men,  in  all  descriptions,  under  the  shadow 
of  an  equal  and  impartial  justice. 

Men  of  another  sort,  I  mean  the  bigoted  enemies 
to  liberty,  may,  perhaps,  in  their  politics,  make  no 
account  of  the  good  or  ill  affection  of  the  Catholics  of 
England,  who  are  but  an  handful  of  people,  (enough 
to  torpaent,  but  not  enough  to  fear,)  perhaps  not  so 
many,  of  both  sexes  and  of  all  ages,  as  fifty  thousand. 
But,  Gentlemen,  it  is  possible  you  may  not  know  that 
the  people  of  that  persuasion  in  Ireland  amount  at 
least  to  sixteen  or  seventeen  hundred  thousand  souls. 
I  do  not  at  all  exaggerate  the  number.  A  nation  to 
be  persecuted  !  Whilst  we  were  masters  of  the  sea, 
embodied  with  America,  and  in  alliance  with  half  the 
powers  of  the  Continent,  we  might,  perhaps,  in  that 
remote  corner  of  Europe,  afford  to  tyrannize  with  im- 
punity. But  there  is  a  revolution  in  our  affairs, 
which  makes  it  prudent  to  be  just.  In  our  late  awk- 
ward contest  with  Ireland  about  trade,  had  religion 
been  thrown  in,  to  ferment  and  embitter  the  mass  of 
discontents,  the  consequences  might  have  been  truly 
dreadful.  But,  very  liaj)pily,  that  cause  of  quarrel 
was  previ(j;isly  quieted  !)y  the  wisdom  of  the  acts  I 
am  commending. 


406  SPEECH    AT    BEISTOL 


Even  ill  England,  where  I  admit  the  danger  from 
the  discontent  of  that  persuasion  to  be  less  than  in 
Ireland,  yet  even  here,  had  we  listened  to  the  coun- 
sels of  fanaticism  and  folly,  wo  might  have  wounded 
ourselves  very  deeply,  and  wounded  ourselves  in  a 
very  tender  part.  You  are  apprised  that  the  Catho- 
lics of  England  consist  mostly  of  our  best  manufac- 
turers. Had  the  legislature  chosen,  instead  of  re- 
turning their  declarations  of  duty  with  correspondent 
good-will,  to  drive  them  to  despair,  there  is  a  country 
at  their  very  door  to  which  they  woiild  be  invited,  —  a 
country  in  all  respects  as  good  as  ours,  and  with  the 
finest  cities  in  the  world  ready  built  to  receive  them. 
And  thus  the  bigotry  of  a  free  country,  and  in  an 
enlightened  age,  would  have  repeopled  the  cities  of 
Flanders,  which,  in  the  darkness  of  two  hundred  years 
ago,  had  been  desolated  by  the  superstition  of  a  cruel 
tyrant.  Our  manufactures  were  the  growth  of  the 
persecutions  in  the  Low  Countries.  What  a  specta- 
cle would  it  be  to  Europe,  to  see  us  at  this  time  of 
day  balancing  the  account  of  tyranny  with  those  very 
countries,  and  by  our  persecutions  driving  back  trade 
and  manufacture,  as  a  sort  of  vagabonds,  to  tlieir 
original  settlement !  But  I  trust  we  shall  be  saved 
this  last  of  disgraces. 

So  far  as  to  the  effect  of  the  act  on  the  interests  of 
this  nation.  With  regard  to  the  interests  of  mankind 
at  large,  I  am  sure  the  benefit  was  very  considerable. 
Long  before  this  act,  indeed,  the  spirit  of  toleration 
began  to  gain  ground  in  Europe.  In  Holland  the 
third  part  of  the  people  are  Catholics  ;  they  live  at 
ease,  and  are  a  sound  part  of  the  state.  In  many 
parts  of  Germany,  Protestants  and  Papists  partake 
the  same  cities,   the   same    councils,  and  even   the 


PREVIOUS    TO    THE    ELECTION.  407 

same  churches.  The  unbounded  liberality  of  the 
kino-  of  Prussia's  conduct  on  this  occasion  is  known 
to  ail  the  ^Yorld  ;  and  it  is  of  a  piece  with  the  other 
grand  maxims  of  his  reign.  Tlie  magnanimity  of  the 
Imperial  court,  breaking  through  the  narrow  princi- 
ples of  its  predecessors,  has  indulged  its  Protestant  sub- 
jects, not  only  with  property,  with  worship,  with  lib- 
eral education,  but  witli  honors  and  trusts,  both  civil 
and  military.  A  wortliy  Protestant  gentleman  of  this 
country  now  fills,  and  fills  with  credit,  an  high  ofiice 
in  the  Austrian  Netherlands.  Even  the  Lutheran 
obstinacy  of  Sweden  has  tliawed  at  length,  and  open- 
ed a  toleration  to  all  religions.  I  know,  myself,  that 
in  France  tlie  Protestants  begin  to  be  at  rest.  The 
army,  whicli  in  tliat  country  is  everything,  is  open  to 
them ;  and  some  of  the  military  rewards  and  deco- 
rations which  tlie  laws  deny  are  supplied  by  others, 
to  make  the  service  acceptable  and  honorable.  The 
first  minister  of  finance  in  that  country  is  a  Protes- 
tant. Two  years'  war  witliout  a  tax  is  among  the  first 
fruits  of  their  liberality.  Tarnished  as  the  glory  of  this 
nation  is,  and  far  as  it  has  waded  into  tlie  shades 
of  an  eclipse,  some  beams  of  its  former  illumination 
still  play  upon  its  surface  ;  and  what  is  done  in  Eng- 
land is  still  looked  to,  as  argument,  and  as  example. 
It  is  certainly  true,  that  no  law  of  this  country  ever 
met  with  such  universal  applause  abroad,  or  was  so 
likely  to  produce  the  perfection  of  that  tolerating 
spirit  which,  as  I  observed,  has  been  long  gaining 
ground  in  Europe :  for  abroad  it  was  universally 
thonght  that  we  had  done  what  I  am  sorry  to  say 
we  had  not ;  they  thought  we  had  granted  a  full  tol- 
eration. That  opinion  was,  however,  so  far  from  hurt- 
ing the  Protestant  cause,  that  I  declare,  with  the 


408  SPEECH    AT   BRISTOL 


most  serious  solemnity,  my  firm  belief  that  no  one 
thing  done  for  these  fifty  years  past  was  so  likely  to 
prove  deeply  beneficial  to  our  religion  at  large  as  Sir 
George  Savile's  act.  In  its  effects  it  was  "  an  act  for 
tolerating  and  protecting  Protestantism  throughout 
Europe  "  ;  and  I  hope  that  those  who  were  taking 
steps  for  the  quiet  and  settlement  of  our  Protestant 
brethren  in  other  countries  will,  even  yet,  rather 
consider  the  steady  equity  of  the  greater  and  better 
part  of  the  people  of  Great  Britain  than  the  vanity 
and  violence  of  a  few. 

I  perceive,  Gentlemen,  by  the  manner  of  all  about 
me,  that  you  look  with  horror  on  the  wicked  clamor 
which  has  been  raised  on  this  subject,  and  that,  in- 
stead of  an  apology  for  what  was  done,  you  rather  de- 
mand from  me  an  account,  why  the  execution  of  the 
scheme  of  toleration  was  not  made  more  answerable 
to  the  large  and  liberal  grounds  on  which  it  was 
taken  up.  The  question  is  natural  and  proper  ;  and  I 
remember  that  a  great  and  learned  magistrate,*  dis- 
tinguished for  his  strong  and  systematic  understand- 
ing, and  who  at  that  time  was  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  made  the  same  objection  to  the  proceed- 
ing. The  statutes,  as  they  now  stand,  are,  without 
doubt,  perfectly  absurd.  But  I  beg  leave  to  explain 
the  cause  of  this  gross  imperfection  in  the  tolerating 
plan,  as  well  and  as  shortly  as  I  am  able.  It  was 
universally  thought  that  the  session  ought  not  to 
pass  over  without  doing  sometJimg  in  this  business. 
To  revise  the  whole  body  of  the  penal  statutes  was 
conceived  to  be  an  object  too  big  for  the  time.  The 
penal  statute,  therefore,  which  was  chosen  for  repeal 
(chosen  to  show  our  disposition  to  conciliate,  not  to 

*  The  Chancellor. 


PREVIOUS    TO    THE    ELECTION.  409 

perfect  a  toleration)  was  this  act  of  kidicrous  cruelty 
of  wliicli  I  have  just  given  you  the  history.     It  is  an 
act  which,  though  not  by  a  great  deal  so  fierce  and 
bloody  as  some  of  the  rest,  was  infinitely  more  ready 
in  the   execution.     It  was  the  act  which  gave  the 
greatest   encouragement  to   those   pests   of  society, 
mercenary   informers   and  interested   disturbers   of 
household  peace ;  and  it  was  observed  with  truth, 
that  the  prosecutions,  either  carried  to  conviction  or 
compounded,  for  many  years,  had  been  all  commenced 
upon  that  act.     It  was  said,  that,  whilst  we  were  de- 
liberating on  a  more  perfect  scheme,  the  spirit  of  the 
age  would  never  come  up  to  the  execution  of  the 
statutes  which  remained,  especially  as  more  steps, 
and  a  cooperation  of  more  minds  and  powers,  were 
required  towards  a  mischievous  use  of  them,  than  for 
the  execution  of  the  act  to  be  repealed :  that  it  was 
better  to  unravel  this  texture  from  below  than  from 
above,  beginning  with  the  latest,  which,  in  general 
practice,  is  the  severest  evil.    It  was  alleged,  tliat  this 
slow  proceeding  would  be  attended  with  the  advantage 
of  a  progressive  experience,  —  and  that  the  people 
would  grow  reconciled  to  toleration,  when  they  should 
find,  by  the  effects,  that  justice  was  not  so  irreconcil- 
able an  enemy  to  convenience  as  they  had  imagined. 
These,  Gentlemen,  were  the  reasons  why  we  left 
this  good  work  in  the  rude,  unfinished  state  in  which 
good  works  are  commonly  left,  through  the  tame  cir- 
cumspection with  which  a  timid   prudence   so   fre- 
quently enervates  beneficence.     In  doing   good,  we 
are  generally  cold,  and  languid,  and  sluggish,  and 
of  all  things  afraid  of  being  too  much  in  the  right. 
But  the  works  of  malice  and  injustice  are  quite  in 
another  style.     They  are  finished  with  a  bold,  mas- 


410  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL, 

terly  hand,  touched  as  they  are  with  the  spirit  of 
tliose  vehement  passions  that  call  forth  all  our  ener- 
gies, whenever  we  oppress  and  persecute. 

Thus  this  matter  was  left  for  the  time,  with  a  full 
determination  in  Parliament  not  to  suffer  other  and 
worse  statutes  to  remain  for  the  purpose  of  counter- 
acting the  benefits  proposed  by  the  repeal  of  one  pe- 
nal law :  for  nobody  then  dreamed  of  defending  wh;it 
was  done  as  a  benefit,  on  the  ground  of  its  being  no 
benefit  at  all.  We  were  not  then  ripe  for  so  mean  a 
subterfuge. 

I  do  not  wish  to  go  over  the  horrid  scene  that 
was  afterwards  acted.  Would  to  God  it  could  be 
expunged  forever  from  the  annals  of  this  country! 
But  since  it  must  subsist  for  our  shame,  let  it  subsist 
for  our  instruction.  In  the  year  1780  there  were 
found  in  this  nation  men  deluded  enough,  (for  I  give 
the  whole  to  their  delusion,)  on  pretences  of  zeal  and 
piety,  without  any  sort  of  provocation  whatsoever, 
real  or  pretended,  to  make  a  desperate  attempt, 
which  would  have  consumed  all  the  glory  and  power 
of  this  country  in  the  flames  of  London,  and  buried 
all  law,  order,  and  religion  under  the  ruins  of  the 
metropolis  of  the  Protestant  world.  Whether  all 
this  mischief  done,  or  in  the  direct  train  of  doing,  was 
in  their  original  scheme,  I  cannot  say  ;  I  hope  it  was 
not :  but  this  would  have  been  the  unavoidable  con- 
sequence of  their  proceedings,  had  not  the  flames 
they  had  lighted  up  in  their  fury  been  extinguished 
in  their  blood. 

All  the  time  that  this  horrid  scene  was  acting,  or 
avenging,  as  well  as  for  some  time  before,  and  ever 
since,  the  wicked  instigators  of  this  unliappy  mul- 
titude, guilty,  with  every  aggravation,  of  all   their 


PREVIOUS    TO    THE    ELECTION.  411 

crimes,  and  screened  in  a  cowardly  darkness  from 
their  punishment,  continued,  Avithout  interruption, 
pity,  or  remorse,  to  blow  iip  the  blind  rage  of  the 
populace  with  a  continued  blast  of  pestilential  libels, 
which  uifected  and  poisoned  the  very  air  we  breathed 
in. 

The  main  drift  of  all  the  libels  and  all  the  riots 
was,  to  force  Parliament  (to  persuade  us  was  hope- 
less) into  an  act  of  national  perfidy  which  has  no 
example.  For,  Gentlemen,  it  is  proper  you  should 
all  know  what  infamy  we  escaped  by  refusing  that 
repeal,  for  a  refusal  of  which,  it  seems,  I,  among  oth- 
ers, stand  somewhere  or  other  accused.  When  we 
took  away,  on  the  motives  which  I  had  the  honor  of 
stating  to  you,  a  few  of  the  innumerable  penalties 
upon  an  oppressed  and  injured  people,  the  relief  was 
not  absolute,  but  given  on  a  stipulation  and  com- 
pact between  them  and  us :  for  we  bound  down  the 
Roman  Catholics  with  the  most  solemn  oaths  to 
bear  true  allegiance  to  this  government,  to  abjure 
all  sort  of  temporal  power  in  any  other,  and  to  re- 
nounce, under  the  same  solemn  obligations,  the  doc- 
trines of  systematic  perfidy  with  which  they  stood 
( I  conceive  very  unjustly)  charged.  Now  our  mod- 
est petitioners  came  up  to  us,  most  humbly  praying 
nothing  more  than  that  we  should  break  our  faith, 
without  any  one  cause  whatsoever  of  forfeiture  as- 
signed ;  and  when  the  subjects  of  this  kingdom  had, 
on  their  part,  fully  performed  their  engagement,  we 
should  refuse,  on  our  part,  the  benefit  we  had  stipu- 
lated on  the  performance  of  those  very  conditions 
that  wer^  prescribed  by  our  own  authority,  and  tak- 
en on  the  sanction  of  our  public  faith :  that  is  to 
say,  when  we  had  inveigled  them  with  fair  promises 


412  SPEECH    AT   BEISTOL, 

within  our  door,  we  were  to  shut  it  on  them,  and, 
adding  mocliery  to  outrage,  to  tell  them,  —  "Now 
we  have  got  you  fast:  your  consciences  are  bound 
to  a  power  resolved  on  your  destruction.  We  have 
made  you  swear  that  your  religion  obliges  you  to 
keep  your  faith :  fools  as  you  are !  we  will  now  let 
you  see  that  our  religion  enjoins  lis  to  keep  no  faith 
with  you."  They  who  would  advisedly  call  upon 
us  to  do  such  things  must  certainly  have  thought  us 
not  only  a  convention  of  treacherous  tyrants,  but  a 
gang  of  the  lowest  and  dirtiest  wretches  that  ever 
disgraced  humanity.  Had  we  done  this,  we  should 
have  indeed  proved  that  there  were  some  in  the 
world  whom  no  faith  could  bind ;  and  we  should 
have  convicted  ourselves  of  that  odious  principle  of 
which  Papists  stood  accused  by  those  very  savages 
who  wished  us,  on  that  accusation,  to  deliver  them 
over  to  their  fury. 

In  this  audacious  tumult,  when  our  very  name  and 
character  as  gentlemen  was  to  be  cancelled  forever, 
along  with  the  faith  and  honor  of  the  nation,  I,  who 
had  exerted  myself  very  little  on  the  quiet  passing  of 
the  bill,  thought  it  necessary  then  to  come  forward. 
I  was  not  alone ;  but  though  some  distinguished 
members  on  all  sides,  and  particularly  on  ours,  added 
much  to  their  high  reputation  by  the  part  they  took 
on  that  day,  (a  part  which  will  be  remembered  as  long 
as  honor,  spirit,  and  eloquence  have  estimation  in  the 
world,)  I  may  and  will  value  myself  so  far,  that,  yield- 
ing in  abilities  to  many,  I  yielded  in  zeal  to  none. 
With  warmth  and  with  vigor,  and  animated  with  a 
just  and  natural  indignation,  I  called  forth  every  fac- 
ulty that  I  possessed,  and  I  directed  it  in  every  way 
in  which  I  could  possibly  employ  it.     I  labored  night 


PEEVIOUS  TO  THE  ELECTION.         413 

and  day.  I  labored  in  Parliament ;  I  labored  out  of 
Parliament.  If,  therefore,  the  resolution  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  refusing  to  commit  this  act  of  unmatched 
turpitude,  be  a  crime,  I  am  guilty  among  the  foremost. 
But,  indeed,  whatever  the"  faults  of  that  House  may 
have  been,  no  one  member  was  found  hardy  enough 
to  propose  so  infamous  a  thing  ;  and  on  full  debate 
we  passed  the  resolution  against  the  petitions  with  as 
much  unanimity  as  we  had  formerly  passed  the  law 
of  which  these  petitions  demanded  the  repeal. 

There  was  a  circumstance  (justice  will  not  suffer 
me  to  pass  it  over)  which,  if  anything  could  enforce 
tlie  reasons  I  have  given,  would  fully  justify  the  act 
of  relief,  and  render  a  repeal,  or  anything  like  a  re- 
peal, unnatural,  impossible.  It  was  the  behavior  of 
the  persecuted  Roman  Catholics  under  the  acts  of 
violence  and  brutal  insolence  which  they  suffered. 
I  suppose  there  are  not  in  London  less  than  four  or 
five  thousand  of  that  persuasion  from  my  country, 
who  do  a  great  deal  of  the  most  laborious  works  in 
the  metropolis  ;  and  they  chiefly  inhabit  those  quar- 
ters which  were  the  principal  theatre  of  the  fury  of 
the  bigoted  multitude.  They  are  known  to  be  men 
of  strong  arms  and  quick  feelings,  and  more  remark- 
able for  a  determined  resolution  than  clear  ideas  or 
much  foresight.  But,  tliough  provoked  by  everything 
that  can  stir  the  blood  of  men,  their  houses  and  chap- 
els in  flames,  and  witli  the  most  atrocious  profana- 
tions of  everything  which  they  hold  sacred  before 
their  eyes,  not  a  hand  was  moved  to  retaliate,  or  even 
to  defend.  Had  a  conflict  once  begun,  the  rage  of 
their  persecutors  would  have  redoubled.  Thus  fury 
increasing  by  the  reverberation  of  outrages,  liouse 
being  fired  for  house,  and  church  for  chapel,  I  am 


414  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL, 

convinced  that  no  power  under  heaven  could  have 
prevented  a  general  conflagration,  and  at  this  day 
London  would  have  been  a  tale.  But  I  am  well 
informed,  and  the  thing  speaks  it,  that  their  clergy 
exerted  their  whole  influence  to  keep  their  people  in 
such  a  state  of  forbearance  and  quiet,  as,  when  I  look 
back,  fills  me  with  astonishment,  —  but  not  with  as- 
tonishment only.  Their  merits  on  that  occasion  ought 
not  to  be  forgotten  ;  nor  will  they,  when  Englishmen 
come  to  recollect  themselves.  I  am  sure  it  were  far 
more  proper  to  have  called  them  forth,  and  given  them 
the  thanks  of  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  than  to  have 
suflered  those  worthy  clergymen  and  excellent  citi- 
zens to  be  hunted  into  holes  and  corners,  whilst  we 
are  making  low-minded  inquisitions  into  the  number 
of  their  people  ;  as  if  a  tolerating  principle  was  never 
to  prevail,  unless  we  were  very  sure  that  only  a  few 
could  possibly  take  advantage  of  it.  But,  indeed,  we 
are  not  yet  well  recovered  of  our  fright.  Our  reason, 
I  trust,  will  return  with  our  security,  and  this  unfor- 
tunate temper  will  pass  over  like  a  cloud. 

Gentlemen,  I  have  now  laid  before  you  a  few  of  the 
reasons  for  taking  away  the  penalties  of  the  act  of 
1699,  and  for  refusing  to  establish  them  on  the  riot- 
ous requisition  of  1780.  Because  I  would  not  suffer 
anything  which  may  be  for  your  satisfaction  to  es- 
cape, permit  me  just  to  touch  on  the  objections  urged 
against  our  act  and  our  resolves,  and  intended  as  a 
justification  of  the  violence  offered  to  both  Houses. 
"  Parliament,"  they  assert,  "  was  too  hasty,  and  they 
ought,  in  so  essential  and  alarming  a  change,  to  have 
proceeded  with  a  far  greater  degree  of  deliberation." 
The  direct  contrary.  Parliament  was  too  slow.  They 
took  fourscore  years  to  deliberate  on  the  repeal  of  an 


PREVIOUS   TO   THE   ELECTION.  415 

act  which  ought  not  to  have  survived  a  second  ses- 
sion. When  at  length,  after  a  procrastination  of  near 
a  century,  the  business  was  taken  up,  it  proceeded  in 
the  most  public  manner,  by  the  ordinary  stages,  and 
as  slowly  as  a  law  so  evidently  right  as  to  be  resisted 
by  none  would  naturally  advance.  Had  it  been  read 
three  times  in  one  day,  we  should  have  shown  only  a 
becoming  readiness  to  recognize,  by  protection,  the 
undoubted  dutiful  behavior  of  those  whom  wo  had 
but  too  long  punished  for  offences  of  presumption,  or 
conjecture.  But  for  what  end  was  that  bill  to  linger 
beyond  the  usual  period  of  an  unopposed  measure  ? 
"Was  it  to  be  delayed  until  a  rabble  in  Edinburgh 
should  dictate  to  the  Church  of  England  what  meas- 
ure of  persecution  was  fitting  for  her  safety  ?  Was 
it  to  be  adjourned  until  a  fanatical  force  could  be  col- 
lected in  London,  sufficient  to  frighten  us  out  of  all 
our  ideas  of  policy  and  justice  ?  Were  we  to  wait  for 
the  profound  lectures  on  the  reason  of  state,  ecclesias- 
tical and  political,  which  the  Protestant  Association 
have  since  condescended  to  read  to  us  ?  Or  were  we, 
seven  hundred  peers  and  commoners,  the  only  per- 
sons ignorant  of  the  ribald  invectives  which  occupy 
the  place  of  argument  in  those  remonstrances,  which 
every  man  of  common  oljscrvation  had  heard  a  thou- 
sand times  over,  and  a  thousand  times  over  had  de- 
spised ?  All  men  had  before  heard  what  they  have  to 
say,  and  all  men  at  this  day  know  what  they  dare  to 
do  ;  and  I  trust  all  honest  men  are  equally  influenced 
by  the  one  and  by  the  other. 

But  they  tell  us,  that  those  our  fellow-citizens 
whose  chains  we  have  a  little  relaxed  are  enemies 
to  liberty  and  our  free  Constitution.  —  Not  enemies, 
I   presume,   to   their   oum   liberty.     And   as   to   the 


416  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL 


Consfckution,  until  we  give  them  some  share  in  it,  I 
do  not  Iviiow  on  wliat  pretence  we  can  examine  into 
their  opinions  about  a  business  in  which  they  have  no 
mterest  or  concern.  But,  after  all,  are  we  equally 
siire  that  they  are  adverse  to  our  Constitution  as  that 
our  statutes  are  hostile  and  destructive  to  them  ?  For 
my  part,  I  have  reason  to  believe  their  opinions  and 
inclinations  in  that  respect  are  various,  exactly  like 
those  of  other  men  ;  and  if  they  lean  more  to  the 
crqwn  tlian  I  and  than  many  of  you  tliink  we  ought, 
we  must  remember  that  he  who  aims  at  another's 
life  is  not  to  be  surprised,  if  he  flies  into  any  sanctu- 
ary that  will  receive  him.  The  tenderness  of  the  ex- 
ecutive power  is  the  natural  asylum  of  those  upon 
whom  the  laws  have  declared  war  ;  and  to  complain 
that  men  are  inclined  to  favor  the  means  of  their  own 
safety  is  so  absurd,  that  one  forgets  the  mjustice  in 
the  ridicule. 

I  must  fairly  tell  you,  that  so  far  as  my  principles 
are  concerned,  (principles  that  I  hope  will  only  depart 
with  my  last  breath,)  that  I  have  no  idea  of  a  liberty 
unconnected  with  honesty  and  justice.  Nor  do  I  be- 
lieve that  any  good  constitutions  of  government,  or  of 
freedom,  can  find  it  necessary  for  their  security  to 
doom  any  part  of  the  people  to  a  permanent  slavery. 
Such  a  constitution  of  freedom,  if  such  can  be,  is  in  ef- 
fect no  more  than  another  name  for  the  tyranny  of  the 
strongest  faction  ;  and  factions  in  republics  have  been, 
and  are,  full  as  capable  as  monarchs  of  the  most  cruel 
oppression  and  injustice.  It  is  but  too  true,  that  the 
love,  and  even  the  very  idea,  of  genuine  liberty  is  ex-' 
tremely  rare.  It  is  but  too  true  that  there  are  many 
whose  whole  scheme  of  freedom  is  made  up  of  pride, 
perverseness,  and  insolence.     They  feel  themselves  in 


PREVIOUS  TO  THE  ELECTION.         41T 

a  state  of  thraldom,  they  imagine  that  their  souls  are 
cooped  and  cabined  in,  unless  they  have  some  man 
or  some  body  of  men  dependent  on  their  mercy. 
This  desire  of  having  some  one  below  them  descends 
to  those  who  are  the  very  lowest  of  all ;  and  a  Prot- 
estant cobbler,  debased  by  his  poverty,  but  exalted  by 
his  share  of  the  ruling  church,  feels  a  pride  in  know- 
ing it  is  by  his  generosity  alone  that  the  peer  whose 
footman's  instep  he  measures  is  able  to  keep  his  chap- 
lain from  a  jail.  This  disposition  is  the  true  source 
of  the  passion  which  many  men  in  very  humble  life 
have  taken  to  the  American  war.  Our  £ul)jects  in 
America ;  our  colonies  ;  oio'  dependants.  This  lust 
of  party  power  is  the  liberty  they  hunger  and  thirst 
for;  and  this  Siren  song  of  ambition  has  charmed 
ears  that  one  would  have  thought  were  never  organ- 
ized to  that  sort  of  music. 

This  way  o^ 2?roscribing  the  citizens  hy  denominations 
and  general  descriptions,  dignified  by  tlie  name  of  rea- 
son of  state,  and  security  for  constitutions  and  com- 
monwealths, is  nothing  better  at  bottom  than  the  mis- 
erable invention  of  an  ungenerous  ambition  which 
would  fain  hold  the  sacred  trust  of  power,  without 
any  of  the  virtues  or  any  of  the  energies  that  give 
a  title  to  it,  —  a  receipt  of  policy,  made  up  of  a  de- 
testable compound  of  malice,  cowardice,  and  sloth. 
They  would  govern  men  against  their  will  ;  but  in 
that  government  they  would  be  discharged  from  the 
exercise  of  vigilance,  providence,  and  fortitnde  ;  and 
therefore,  that  they  may  sleep  on  their  watcli,  they 
consent  to  take  some  one  division  of  the  society  into 
partnership  of  the  tyranny  over  the  rest.  But  let 
government,  in  what  form  it  may  be,  comprehend 
the  whole  in  its  justice,  and  restrain  the  suspicious 

VOL.  II.  27 


418  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL 


by  its  vigilance,  — let  it  keep  watcli  and  ward,  —  let  it 
discover  by  its  sagacity,  and  punish  by  its  firmness, 
all  delinquency  against  its  power,  whenever  delin- 
quency exists  in  the  overt  acts,  —  and  then  it  will  be 
as  safe  as  ever  God  and  Nature  intended  it  should 
be.  Crimes  are  the  acts  of  individuals,  and  not  of 
denominations  :  and  therefore  arbitrarily  to  class  men 
under  general  descriptions,  in  order  to  proscribe  and 
punish  them  in  the  lump  for  a  presumed  delinquen- 
cy, of  which  perhaps  but  a  part,  perhaps  none  at  all, 
are  guilty,  is  indeed  a  compendious  method,  and  saves 
a  world  of  trouble  about  proof;  but  such  a  method, 
instead  of  being  law,  is  an  act  of  unnatural  rebellion 
against  the  legal  dominion  of  reason  and  justice  ;  and 
this  vice,  in  any  constitution  that  entertains  it,  at  one 
time  or  other  will  certainly  bring  on  its  ruin. 

We  are  told  that  this  is  not  a  religious  persecution  ; 
and  its  abettors  are  loud  in  disclaiming  all  severities 
on  account  of  conscience.  Very  fine  indeed !  Then 
let  it  be  so  :  they  are  not  persecutors  ;  they  are  only 
tyrants.  With  all  my  heart.  I  am  perfectly  indiffer- 
ent concerning  the  pretexts  upon  which  we  torment 
one  another,  —  or  whether  it  be  for  the  constitution  of 
the  Church  of  England,  or  for  the  constitution  of  the 
State  uf  England,  that  people  choose  to  make  their 
fellow-creatures  wretched.  When  we  were  sent  into 
a  place  of  authority,  you  that  sent  us  had  yourselves 
but  one  commission  to  give.  You  could  give  us  none 
to  wrong  or  oppress,  or  even  to  suffer  any  kind  of  op- 
pression or  wrong,  on  any  grounds  whatsoever :  not 
on  political,  as  in  the  affairs  of  America ;  not  on  com- 
mercial, as  in  those  of  Ireland ;  not  in  civil,  as  in  the 
laws  for  debt ;  not  in  religious,  as  in  the  statutes 
agamst  Protestant  or  Catholic  dissenters.     The  diver- 


PEEVIOUS   TO   THE   ELECTION.  419 

sified,  but  connected,  fabric  of  imhcrsal  justice  is  well 
cramped  and  bolted  together  in  all  its  parts ;  and  de- 
pend upon  it,  I  never  have  employed,  and  I  never  shall 
employ,  any  engine  of  power  wliich  may  come  into  my 
hands  to  wrench  it  asunder.  All  shall  stand,  if  I  can 
help  it,  and  all  shall  stand  connected.  After  all,  to 
comi)lcte  this  work,  much  remains  to  be  done  :  much 
in  the  East,  much  in  the  West.  But,  great  as  the  work 
is,  if  our  will  be  ready,  our  powers  are  not  deficient. 

Since  you  have  suffered  mo  to  trouble  you  so  much 
on  this  subject,  permit  me.  Gentlemen,  to  detain  you 
a  little  longer.  I  am,  indeed,  most  solicitous  to  give 
you  perfect  satisfaction.  I  find  there  are  some  of  a 
better  and  softer  nature  than  the  persons  with  whom 
I  have  supposed  myself  in  debate,  who  neither  think  ill 
of  the  act  of  relief,  nor  by  any  means  desire  the  repeal, 
—  yet  who,  not  accusing,  but  lamenting,  what  was 
done,  on  account  of  the  consequences,  have  frequently 
expressed  their  wish  that  the  late  act  had  never  been 
made.  Some  of  this  description,  and  persons  of  Avorth, 
I  have  met  with  in  this  city.  They  conceive  that  the 
prejudices,  whatever  they  might  be,  of  a  large  part  of 
the  people,  ought  not  to  liavc  been  shocked,  —  that 
their  opinions  ought  to  have  been  previously  taken, 
and  much  attended  to,  —  and  that  thereby  the  late 
horrid  scenes  might  have  been  prevented. 

I  confess,  my  notions  are  widely  different ;  and  I 
never  was  less  sorry  for  any  action  of  my  life.  I  liko 
the  bill  the  better  on  account  of  the  events  of  all 
kinds  that  followed  it.  It  relieved  the  real  si.ffcrers  ; 
it  strengthened  the  state  ;  and,  by  the  disorders  that 
ensued,  we  had  clear  evidence  that  there  lurked  a 
temper  somewhere  which  ought  not  to  be  fostered 
by  the  laws.     No  ill  consequences  whatever  could  be 


420  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL 


attributed  to  tlic  act  itself.  We  knew  beforehand, 
or  wc  were  poorly  instructed,  that  toleration  is 
odious  to  the  intolerant,  freedom  to  oppressors,  prop- 
erty to  robbers,  and  all  kinds  and  degrees  of  pros- 
perity to  the  ennous.  Wc  knew  that  all  these  kinds 
of  men  would  gladly  gratify  their  evil  dispositions 
under  tlie  sanction  of  law  and  religion,  if  they  could : 
if  they  could  not,  yet,  to  make  way  to  their  ob- 
jects, they  would  do  their  utmost  to  subvert  all  re- 
ligion and  all  law.  This  we  certainly  knew.  But, 
knowing  this,  is  there  any  reason,  because  thieves 
break  in  and  steal,  and  thus  bring  detriment  to  you, 
and  draw  ruin  on  themselves,  that  I  am  to  be  sorry 
that  you  arc  m  possession  of  shops,  and  of  ware- 
houses, and  of  wholesome  laws  to  protect  them  ?  Are 
you  to  build  no  houses,  because  desperate  men  may 
pull  them  down  upon  their  own  heads  ?  Or,  if  a  ma- 
lignant wretch  will  cut  his  own  throat,  because  he 
sees  you  give  alms  to  tlie  necessitous  and  deserving, 
shall  his  destruction  be  attributed  to  your  charity, 
and  not  to  his  own  deplorable  madness  ?  If  we  re- 
pent of  our  good  actions,  what,  I  pray  you,  is  left  for 
our  faiilts  and  follies  ?  It  is  not  the  beneficence  of 
the  laws,  it  is  the  unnatural  temper  which  benefi- 
cence can  fret  and  sour,  that  is  to  be  lamented.  It 
is  this  temper  which,  by  all  rational  means,  ought  to 
be  sweetened  and  corrected.  If  froward  men  sliould 
refuse  this  cure,  can  they  vitiate  anything  but  them- 
selves ?  Does  evil  so  react  upon  good,  as  not  only 
to  retard  its  motion,  but  to  change  its  nature  ?  If  it 
can  so  operate,  then  good  men  will  always  bo  in  the 
power  of  the  bad,  —  and  virtue,  by  a  dreadful  reverse 
of  order,  must  lie  under  perpetual  subjection  and 
bondage  to  vice. 


PREVIOUS   TO    THE   ELECTION.  421 

As  to  the  opinion  of  the  people,  which  some  tliink, 
in  such  cases,  is  to  be  imphcitly  obeyed,  —  near  two 
years'  tranquillity,  which  followed  the  act,  and  its  in- 
stant imitation  in  Ireland,  proved  abundantly  that  the 
late  horrible  spirit  was  in  a  great  measure  the  effect 
of  insidious  art,  and  perverse  industry,  and  gross  mis- 
representation. But  suppose  that  the  dislike  had  been 
much  more  deliberate  and  much  more  general  than 
I  am  persuaded  it  was,  —  when  we  know  that  the 
opinions  of  even  the  greatest  multitudes  are  the 
standard  of  rectitude,  I  shall  think  myself  obliged  to 
make  those  opinions  the  masters  of  my  conscience. 
But  if  it  may  be  doubted  whether  Omnipotence  itself 
is  competent  to  alter  the  essential  constitution  of  right 
and  wrong,  sure  I  am  that  such  tidncis  as  they  and 
I  are  possessed  of  no  such  power.  No  man  carries 
further  than  I  do  the  policy  of  maldng  government 
pleasing  to  the  people.  But  the  widest  range  of  this 
politic  complaisance  is  confined  within  the  limits  of 
justice.  I  would  not  only  consult  the  interest  of  the 
people,  but  I  would  cheerfully  gratify  their  humors. 
We  arc  all  a  sort  of  children  that  must  be  soothed  and 
managed.  I  think  I  am  not  austere  or  formal  in  my 
nature.  I  would  bear,  I  would  even  myself  play  my 
part  in,  any  innocent  buffooneries,  to  divert  them. 
But  I  never  will  act  the  tyrant  for  their  amusement. 
If  they  will  mix  malice  in  their  sports,  I  shall  never 
consent  to  throw  them  any  living,  sentient  creature 
whatsoever,  no,  not  so  much  as  a  kitling,  to  torment. 

"  But  if  I  profess  all  this  impolitic  stubbornness,  I 
may  chance  never  to  be  elected  into  Parliament."  —  It 
is  certainly  not  pleasing  to  be  put  out  of  the  public 
service.  But  I  wish  to  be  a  member  of  Parliament 
to  have  my  share  of  doing  good  and  resisting  evil.    It 


422  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL, 

would  therefore  be  absurd  to  renounce  my  objects 
in  order  to  obtain  my  seat.  I  deceive  myself,  indeed, 
most  grossly,  if  I  had  not  much  rather  pass  the  re- 
mainder of  my  life  hidden  in  the  recesses  of  the  deep- 
est obscurity,  feeding  my  mind  even  with  the  visions 
and  imaginations  of  such  things,  than  to  be  placed 
on  the  most  splendid  throne  of  the  universe,  tantal- 
ized with  a  denial  of  the  practice  of  all  which  can 
make  the  greatest  situation  any  other  than  the  great- 
est curse.  Gentlemen,  I  have  had  my  day.  I  can 
never  sufficiently  express  my  gratitude  to  you  for 
having  set  me  in  a  place  wherein  I  could  lend  the 
slightest  help  to  great  and  laudable  designs.  If  I 
have  had  my  share  in  any  measure  g■i^'ing  quiet  to 
private  property  and  private  conscience,  —  if  by  my 
vote  I  have  aided  in  securing  to  families  the  best  pos- 
session, peace,  —  if  I  have  joined  in  reconciling  kings 
to  their  subjects,  and  subjects  to  their  prince,  —  if  I 
have  assisted  to  loosen  the  foreign  holdings  of  the  cit- 
izen, and  taught  him  to  look  for  his  protection  to  the 
laws  of  his  country,  and  for  his  comfort  to  the  good- 
will of  his  countrymen,  —  if  I  have  thus  taken  my 
part  with  the  best  of  men  in  the  best  of  their  actions, 
I  can  shut  the  book :  I  might  wish  to  read  a  page 
or  two  more,  but  this  is  enough  for  my  measure. 
I  have  not  lived  in  vain. 

And  now,  Gentlemen,  on  this  serious  day,  when  I 
come,  as  it  were,  to  make  up  my  account  with  you, 
let  me  take  to  myself  some  degree  of  honest  pride  on 
the  nature  of  the  charges  that  are  against  me.  I  do 
not  here  stand  before  you  accused  of  venality,  or  of 
neglect  of  duty.  It  is  not  said,  that,  in  the  long 
period  of  my  service,  I  have,  in  a  single  instance,  sac- 
rificed the  slightest  of  your  interests  to  my  ambition 


PREVIOUS  TO  THE  ELECTION.         423 

or  to  my  fortune.  It  is  not  alleged,  that,  to  gratify 
any  anger  or  revenge  of  my  own,  or  of  my  party,  I 
have  had  a  share  in  wronging  or  oppressing  any  de- 
scription of  men,  or  any  one  man  in  any  description. 
No  !  the  charges  against  me  are  all  of  one  kind  :  that 
I  have  pushed  the  principles  of  general  justice  and 
benevolence  too  far,  —  further  than  a  cautious  pol- 
icy would  warrant,  and  further  than  the  opinions  of 
many  would  go  along  with  me.  In  every  accident 
which  may  happen  through  life,  in  pain,  in  sorrow,  in 
depression,  and  distress,  I  will  call  to  mind  this  accu- 
sation, and  be  comforted. 

Gentlemen,  I  submit  the  whole  to  your  judgment. 
Mr.  Mayor,  I  thank  you  for  the  trouble  you  have 
taken  on  this  occasion  :  in  your  state  of  health  it  is 
particularly  obliging.  If  this  company  should  think 
it  advisable  for  me  to  withdraw,  I  shall  respectfully 
retire ;  if  you  think  otherwise,  I  shall  go  directly  to 
the  Council-House  and  to  the  'Change,  and  without 
a  moment's  delay  begin  my  canvass. 


Beistol,  September  6,  1780. 

At  a  great  and  respectable  meeting  of  the  friends  of 
Edmund  Burke,  Esq.,  held  at  the  Guiklhall  this  day,  the 
Eight  Worshipful  the  Mayor  in  the  chair:  — 

Resolved,  That  Mr.  Burke,  as  a  representative  for  this 
city,  has  done  all  possible  honor  to  himself  as  a  senator  and 
a  man,  and  that  we  do  heartily  and  honestly  approve  of  his 
conduct,  as  the  result  of  an  enlightened  loyalty  to  his  sov- 
ereign, a  warm  and  zealous  love  to  his  country  through  its 
widely  extended  empire,  a  jealous  and  watchful  care  of  the 
liberties  of  his  fellow-subjects,  an  enlarged  and  liberal  un- 


424  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL. 

derstanding  of  our  commercial  interest,  a  humane  atten- 
tion to  the  circumstances  of  even  the  lowest  ranks  of  the 
community,  and  a  truly  wise,  politic,  and  tolerant  spirit,  in 
supporting  tlie  national  church,  with  a  reasonable  indulgence 
to  all  who  dissent  from  it ;  and  we  wish  to -express  the  most 
marked  abhoi-rence  of  the  base  arts  which  liave  been  era- 
ployed,  without  regard  to  trutli  and  reason,  to  misrepresent 
his  eminent  services  to  his  country. 

Resolved,  That  this  resolution  be  copied  out,  and  signed 
by  the  chairman,  and  be  by  him  presented  to  Mr.  Burke,  as 
the  fullest  expression  of  the  respectful  and  grateful  sense  we 
entertain  of  his  merits  and  services,  public  and  private,  to 
the  citizens  of  Bristol,  as  a  man  and  a  representative. 

Resolved,  Tiiat  the  thanks  of  this  meeting  be  given  to 
the  Right  Worshipful  the  Mayor,  who  so  ably  and  worthily 
presided  in  this  meeting. 

Resolved,  That  it  is  the  earnest  request  of  this  meeting  to 
Mr.  Burke,  that  he  should  again  offer  himself  a  candidate  to 
represent  this  city  in  Parliament ;  assuring  him  of  that  full 
and  strenuous  support  .which  is  due  to  the  merits  of  so 
excellent  a  representative. 


This  business  being  over,  Mr.  Burke  went  to  the  Ex- 
change, and  offered  himself  as  a  candidate  in  the  usual  man- 
ner. He  was  accompanied  to  the  Council-House,  and  from 
thence  to  the  Exchange,  by  a  large  body  of  most  respect- 
able gentlemen,  amongst  whom  were  the  following  mem- 
bers of  the  corporation,  viz.:  Mr.  JNIayor,  Mr.  Alderman 
Smitli,  Mr.  Alderman  Deane,  Mr.  Alderman  Gordon,  Wil- 
liam Weare,  Samuel  Munckley,  John  Merlott,  John  Crofts, 
Levy  Ames,  John  Fisher  Weare,  Benjamin  Loscombe, 
Philip  Protheroe,  Sarnuel  Span,  Joseph  Smith,  Richard 
Bright  and  John  Noble,  Esquires. 


SPEECH  AT  BRISTOL, 


o» 


DECLINING    THE    POLL 


1780. 


SPEECH. 


Bristol,  Saturday,  9  th  Sept.,  1780. 

This  morning  tbe  slaeriff  and  candidates  assembled  as 
usual  at  the  Council-House,  and  from  thence  proceeded  to 
Guildhall.  Proclamation  being  made  for  the  electors  to 
appear  and  give  their  votes,  Mr.  Burke  stood  forward  on 
the  hustings,  surrounded  by  a  great  number  of  the  corpora- 
tion and  other  principal  citizens,  and  addressed  himself  to 
the  whole  assembly  as  follows. 

GENTLE:MEN,  — I  declino  the  election.  It  has 
ever  been  my  rule  through  life  to  observe  a 
proportion  between  my  efforts  and  my  objects.  I 
have  never  been  remarkable  for  a  bold,  active,  and 
sanguine  pursuit  of  advantages  that  are  personal  to 
myself. 

I  have  not  canvassed  the  whole  of  this  city  in  form, 
but  I  have  taken  such  a  view  of  it  as  satisfies  my 
own  mind  that  your  choice  will  not  ultimately  fall 
upon  me.  Your  city,  Gentlemen,  is  in  a  state  of 
miserable  distraction,  and  I  am  resolved  to  with- 
draw whatever  share  my  pretensions  may  have  had 
in  its  unhappy  divisions.  I  have  not  been  in  haste ; 
I  have  tried  all  prudent  means ;  I  have  waited  for  the 
effect  of  all  contingencies.  If  I  were  fond  of  a  con- 
test, by  the  partiality  of  my  numerous  friends  (whom 
you  know  to  be  among  the  most  weighty  and  respect- 
able people  of  the  city)  I  have  the  means  of  a  sharp 


4.28  SPEECH   AT   BRISTOL, 

one  in  my  hands.  But  I  tlioiiglit  it  far  better,  witli 
my  strength  unspent,  and  my  reputation  unimpaired, 
to  do,  early  and  from  foresight,  that  wliicli  I  might 
be  obliged  to  do  from  necessity  at  last. 

I  am  not  in  the  least  surprised  nor  in  the  least  an- 
gry at  this  view  of  things.  I  have  read  the  book  of 
life  for  a  long  time,  and  I  have  read  other  books  a  lit- 
tle. Nothing  has  happened  to  me,  but  what  has 
happened  to  men  much  better  than  me,  and  in  times 
and  in  nations  full  as  good  as  the  age  and  country 
that  we  live  in.  To  say  that  I  am  no  way  con- 
cerned would  be  neither  decent  nor  true.  The  rep- 
resentation of  Bristol  was  an  object  on  many  accounts 
dear  to  me  ;  and  I  certainly  should  very  far  prefer  it 
to  any  other  in  the  kingdom.  My  habits  arc  made 
to  it ;  and  it  is  in  general  more  unpleasant  to  be  re- 
jected after  long  trial  than  not  to  be  chosen  at  all. 

But,  Gentlemen,  I  will  see  nothing  except  your 
former  kindness,  and  I  will  give  way  to  no  other  sen- 
timents than  those  of  gratitude.  From  the  bottom 
of  my  heart  I  thank  you  for  what  you  have  done  for 
me.  You  have  given  me  a  long  term,  which  is  now 
expired.  I  have  performed  the  conditions,  and  en- 
joyed all  the  profits  to  the  full ;  and  I  now  surrender 
your  estate  into  your  hands,  without  being  in  a  single 
tile  or  a  single  stone  impaired  or  wasted  by  my  use. 
I  have  served  the  public  for  fifteen  years.  I  have 
served  you  in  particular  for  six.  What  is  past  is 
well  stored ;  it  is  safe,  and  out  of  the  power  of  for- 
tune. What  is  to  come  is  in  wiser  hands  than  ours  ; 
and  He  in  whose  hands  it  is  best  knows  whether  it 
is  best  for  you  and  me  that  I  should  be  in  Parliament, 
or  even  in  the  world. 

Gentlemen,   the   melancholy   event   of  yesterday 


ON   DECLINING   THE   POLL.  429 

reads  to  us  an  awful  lesson  against  being  too  mucli 
troubled  about  any  of  the  objects  of  ordinary  ambi- 
tion. The  worthy  gentleman*  who  has  been  snatched 
from  us  at  the  moment  of  the  election,  and  in  the 
middle  of  the  contest,  whilst  his  desires  were  as  warm 
and  his  hopes  as  eager  as  ours,  has  feelingly  told  us 
what  shadows  we  are  and  what  shadows  we  pursue. 

It  has  been  usual  for  a  candidate  who  declines  to 
take  his  leave  by  a  letter  to  the  sheriffs :  but  I  receiv- 
ed your  trust  in  the  face  of  day,  and  in  the  face  of 
day  I  accept  your  dismission.  I  am  not  —  I  am  not 
at  all  ashamed  to  look  upon  you ;  nor  can  my  pres- 
ence discompose  the  order  of  business  here.  I  hum- 
bly and  respectfully  take  my  leave  of  the  sheriffs,  the 
candidates,  and  the  electors,  wishing  heartily  that  the 
choice  may  be  for  the  best,  at  a  time  which  calls, 
if  ever  time  did  call,  for  service  that  is  not  nomi- 
nal. It  is  no  plaything  you  are  about.  I  tremble, 
when  I  consider  the  trust  I  have  presumed  to  ask. 
I  confided,  perhaps,  too  much  in  my  intentions.  They 
were  really  fair  and  upright ;  and  I  am  bold  to  say 
that  I  ask  no  ill  thfng  for  you,  when,  on  parting  from 
this  place,  I  pray,  that,  whomever  you  choose  to  suc- 
ceed me,  he  may  resemble  me  exactly  in  all  things, 
except  in  my  abilities  to  serve,  and  my  fortune  to 
please  you. 

*  Mr.  Coombo. 


SPEECH 

(DECEMBER  1,  1783) 


UPON 


THE   QUESTION  FOR   THE    SPEAKER'S   LEAVING  THE 
CHAIR  IN  ORDER  FOR  THE  HOUSE  TO  RE- 
SOLVE ITSELF  INTO  A  COMMITTEE 


ON 


MR.   FOX'S  EAST  INDIA  BILL. 


SPEECH. 


MR.  SPEAKER,  — I  thank  you  for  pointing  to 
me.  I  really  wished  much  to  engage  your 
attention  in  an  early  stage  of  the  debate.  I  have 
beeji  long  very  deeply,  though  perhaps  ineffectu- 
ally, engaged  in  the  preliminary  inquiries,  which 
have  continued  without  intermission  for  some  years. 
Though  I  have  felt,  with  some  degree  of  'sensibility, 
the  natural  and  inevitable  impressions  of  the  several 
matters  of  fact,  as  they  have  been  successively  dis- 
closed, I  have  not  at  any  time  attempted  to  trouble 
you  on  the  merits  of  the  subject,  and  very  little  on 
any  of  the  points  which  incidentally  arose  in  the 
course  of  our  proceedings.  But  I  should  be  sorry 
to  be  found  totally  silent  upon  this  day.  Our  inqui- 
ries are  now  come  to  their  final  issue.  It  is  now  to 
be  determined  whctlier  the  three  years  of  laborious 
Parliamentary  research,  whether  the  twenty  years  of 
patient  Indian  suffering,  are  to  produce  a  substantial 
reform  in  our  Eastern  administration ;  or  whether 
our  knowledge  of  the  grievances  has  abated  our  zeal 
for  the  correction  of  them,  and  our  very  inquiry  into 
the  evil  was  only  a  pretext  to  elude  the  remedy 
which  is  demanded  from  us  by  humanity,  by  justice, 
and  by  every  principle  of  true  policy.  Depend  upon 
it,  this  business  cannot  be  indifferent  to  our  fame. 
It  will  tnrn  out  a  matter  of  great  disgrace  or  great 

VOL.  II.  28 


434         SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL. 

glory  to  the  whole  British  nation.  We  are  on  a  con- 
spicuous stage,  and  the  world  marlis  our  demeanor. 

I  am  therefore  a  little  concerned  to  perceive  the 
spirit  and  temper  in  which  the  debate  has  been  all 
along  pursued  upon  one  side  of  the  House.  Tlie 
declamation  of  the  gentlemen  who  oppose  the  bill 
has  been  abundant  and  vehement ;  but  they  have 
been  reserved  and  even  silent  about  the  fitness  or 
unfitness  of  the  plan  to  attain  the  direct  object  it  has 
in  view.  By  some  gentlemen  it  is  taken  up  (  by  way 
of  exercise,  I  presume)  as  a  point  of  law,  on  a  question 
of  private  property  and  corporate  franchise ;  by  oth- 
ers it  is  regarded  as  the  petty  intrigue  of  a  faction  at 
court,  and  argued  merely  as  it  tends  to  set  this  man 
a  little  higher  or  that  a  little  lower  in  situation  and 
power.  All  the  void  has  been  filled  up  with  invec- 
tives against  coalition,  with  allusions  to  the  loss  of 
America,  with  the  activity  and  inactivity  of  minis- 
ters. The  total  silence  of  these  gentlemen  concerning 
the  interest  and  well-being  of  the  people  of  India, 
and  concerning  the  interest  which  this  nation  has  in 
the  commerce  and  revenues  of  that  country,  is  a 
strong  indication  of  the  value  which  they  set  upon 
these  objects. 

It  has  been  a  little  painful  to  me  to  observe  the 
intrusion  into  this  important  debate  of  such  company 
as  quo  warranto,  and  mandamus,  and  certiorari:  as  if 
we  were  on  a  trial  about  mayors  and  aldermen  and 
capital  burgesses,  or  engaged  in  a  suit  concerning 
the  borough  of  Penryn,  or  Saltash,  or  St.  Ives,  or  St. 
Mawes.  Gentlemen  have  argued  with  as  much  heat 
and  passion  as  if  the  first  things  in  the  world  were 
at  stake  ;  and  their  topics  are  such  as  belong  only  to 
matter  of  the  lowest  and  meanest  litigation.     It  is 


SPEECH    OX    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  435 

not  right,  it  is  not  worthy  of  us,  in  this  manner  to 
depreciate  the  vahie,  to  degrade  the  majesty,  of  tliis 
grave  deliberation  of  policy  and  empire. 

For  my  part,  I  have  thought  myself  bound,  when  a 
matter  of  this  extraordinary  weight  came  before  me, 
not  to  consider  (as  some  gentlemen  are  so  fond  of 
doing)  whether  the  bill  originated  from  a  Secretary  of 
State  for  the  Home  Department  or  from  a  Secretary 
for  the  Foreign,  from  a  minister  of  influence  or  a  min- 
ister of  the  people,  from  Jacob  or  from  Esau.*  I 
asked  myself,  and  I  asked  myself  nothing  else,  what 
part  it  was  fit  for  a  member  of  Parliament,  who 
has  supplied  a  mediocrity  of  talents  by  the  extreme 
of  diligence,  and  who  has  thought  himself  obliged  by 
the  research  of  years  to  wind  himself  into  the  in- 
most recesses  and  labyrinths  of  the  Indian  detail,  — ■ 
what  part,  I  say,  it  became  such  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment to  take,  when  a  minister  of  state,  in  conformity 
to  a  recommendation  from  the  throne,  has  brought 
before  us  a  system  for  the  better  government  of  the 
territory  and  commerce  of  the  East.  In  this  light, 
and  in  this  only,  I  will  trouble  you  with  my  senti- 
ments. 

It  is  not  only  agreed,  but  demanded,  by  the  right 
honorable  gentleman,  f  and  by  those  who  act  with 
him,  that  a  ivhole  system  ought  to  be  produced  ;  that 
it  ought  not  to  be  an  lialf-vieanure ;  that  it  ought  to 
be  no  palliative,  but  a  legislative  provision,  vigorous, 
substantial,  and  effective.  —  I  believe  that  no  man 
who  understands  the  subject  can  doubt  for  a  moment 
that  those  must  be  the  conditions  of  anything  deserv- 
ing the  name  of  a  reform  in  the  Indian  government ; 
that  anything  short  of  them  would  not  only  be  delu- 

*  An  allusion  made  by  Mr.  Powis.  t  Mr.  Pitt. 


4-36         SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX's   EAST   INDIA   BILL. 

sive,  but,  in  this  matter,  wliich  admits  no  medium, 
noxious  in  the  extreme. 

To  all  the  conditions  proposed  by  his  adversaries 
the  mover  of  the  bill  perfectly  agrees ;  and  on  his 
performance  of  them  he  rests  his  cause.  On  the  other 
hand,  not  the  least  objection  has  been  taken  with 
regard  to  the  efficiency,  the  vigor,  or  the  complete- 
ness of  the  scheme.  I  am  therefore  warranted  to  as- 
sume, as  a  thing  admitted,  that  the  bills  accomplish 
what  both  sides  of  the  House  demand  as  essential. 
The  end  is  completely  answered,  so  far  as  the  direct 
and  immediate  object  is  concerned. 

But  though  there  are  no  direct,  yet  there  are  vari- 
ous collateral  objections  made :  objections  from  the 
effects  which  this  plan  of  refoi'm  for  Indian  adminis- 
tration may  have  on  the  privileges  of  great  public 
bodies  in  England ;  from  its  probable  influence  on 
the  constitutional  rights,  or  on  the  freedom  and  integ- 
rity, of  the  several  branches  of  the  legislature. 

Before  I  answer  these  objections,  I  must  beg  leave 
to  observe,  that,  if  we  are  not  able  to  contrive  some 
method  of  governing  India  well^  which  will  not  of 
necessity  become  the  means  of  governing  Great  Brit- 
ain ill,  a  ground  is  laid  for  their  eternal  separation, 
but  none  for  sacrificing  the  people  of  that  country  to 
our  Constitution.  I  am,  however,  far  from  being  per- 
suaded that  any  such  incompatibility  of  interest  does 
at  all  exist.  On  the  contrary,  I  am  certain  that  every 
means  effectual  to  preserve  India  from  oppression  is 
a  guard  to  preserve  the  British  Constitution  from  its 
worst  corruption.  To  show  this,  I  will  consider  the 
objections,  which,  I  think,  are  four. 

1st,  That  the  bill  is  an  attack  on  the  chartered 
rights  of  men. 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  437 

2ndly,  That  it  increases  the  influence  of  the  crown. 

3rdly,  That  it  does  not  increase,  but  diminishes,  the 
influence  of  the  crown,  in  order  to  promote  the  inter- 
ests of  certain  ministers  and  their  party. 

4thly,  That  it  deeply  affects  the  national  credit. 

As  to  the  first  of  these  objections,  I  must  observe 
that  the  phrase  of  "  the  chartered  rights  of  men  "  is 
full  of  affectation,  and  very  unusual  in  the  discussion 
of  privileges  conferred  by  charters  of  the  present  de- 
scription. But  it  is  not  diflficult«to  discover  what  end 
that  ambiguous  mode  of  expression,  so  often  reiterat- 
ed, is  meant  to  answer. 

The  rights  of  men  —  that  is  to  say,  the  natural 
rights  of  mankind  —  are  indeed  sacred  things ;  and 
if  any  public  measure  is  proved  mischievously  to  affect, 
them,  the  objection  ought  to  be  fatal  to  that  measure, 
even  if  no  charter  at  all  could  be  set  up  against  it. 
If  these  natural  rights  are  further  affirmed  and  de- 
clared by  express  covenants,  if  they  are  clearly  defined 
and  secured  against  chicane,  against  power  and  au- 
thority, by  written  instruments  and  positive  engage 
ments,  they  are  in  a  still  better  condition :  they  par- 
take not  only  of  the  sanctity  of  the  object  so  secured, 
but  of  that  solemn  public  faith  itself  which  secures  an 
object  of  such  importance.  Indeed,  this  formal  recog- 
nition, by  the  sovereign  power,  of  an  original  right 
in  the  subject,  can  never  be  subverted,  but  by  rooting 
up  the  holding  radical  principles  of  government,  and 
even  of  society  itself.  The  charters  which  we  call  by 
distinction  great  are  public  instruments  of  this  na- 
ture :  I  mean  the  cliartcrs  of  King  John  and  King 
Henry  the  Third.  The  things  secured  by  these  instru- 
ments may,  without  any  deceitful  ambiguity,  be  very 
fitly  called  the  chartered  rights  of  men. 


438         SPEECH    ox    M?w    fox's    east   INDIA    BILL. 

These  charters  have  made  the  very  name  of  a  char- 
ter dear  to  the  heart  of  every  Englishman.  But,  Sir, 
there  may  be,  and  there  are,  charters,  not  only  differ- 
ent in  nature,  but  formed  on  principles  the  very  reverse 
of  those  of  the  Great  Charter.  Of  this  kind  is  the  char- 
ter of  the  East  India  Company.  Magna  Gharta  is  a 
charter  to  restrain  power  and  to  destroy  monopoly. 
The  East  India  charter  is  a  charter  to  establish 
monopoly  and  to  create  power.  Political  power  and 
commercial  monopoly  are  not  the  rights  of  men  ;  and 
the  rights  to  them  derived  from  charters  it  is  fallacious 
and  sophistical  to  call  "the  chartered  rights  of  men." 
These  chartered  rights  (to  speak  of  such  charters  and 
of  their  effects  in  terms  of  the  greatest  possible  mod- 
eration) do  at  least  suspend  the  natural  rights  of 
mankind  at  large,  and  in  their  very  frame  and  con- 
stitution are  liable  to  fall  into  a  direct  violation  of 
them. 

It  is  a  charter  of  this  latter  description  (that  is  to 
say,  a  charter  of  power  and  monopoly)  which  is  affect- 
ed by  the  bill  before  you.  The  bill.  Sir,  does  without 
question  affect  it :  it  does  affect  it  essentially  and 
substantially.  But,  having  stated  to  you  of  what 
description  the  chartered  rights  are  which  this  bill 
touches,  I  feel  no  difficulty  at  all  in  acknowledging 
the  existence  of  those  chartered  rights  in  their  fullest 
extent.  They  belong  to  the  Company  in  the  surest 
manner,  and  they  are  secured  to  that  body  by  every 
sort  of  public  sanction.  They  are  stamped  by  the 
faith  of  the  king ;  they  are  stamped  by  the  faith  of 
Parliament:  they  have  been  bought  for  money,  for 
money  honestly  and  fairly  paid ;  they  have  been 
bought  for  valuable  consideration,  over  and  over 
again. 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX's    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  439 

I  therefore  freely  admit  to  the  East  India  Company 
their  chTim  to  exclude  their  fellow-subjects  from  the 
commerce  of  half  the  globe.  I  admit  their  claim  to 
administer  an  annual  territorial  revenue  of  seven 
millions  sterling,  to  command  an  army  of  sixty  thou- 
sand men,  and  to  dispose  (under  the  control  of  a 
sovereign,  imperial  discretion,  and  with  the  due  ob- 
servance of  the  natural  and  local  law)  of  the  lives 
and  fortunes  of  thirty  millions  of  tlieir  fellow-crea- 
tures. All  this  they  possess  by  charter,  and  by  Acts 
of  Parliament,  (in  my  ophiion,)  without  a  shadow  of 
controversy. 

Those  who  carry  the  rights  and  claims  of  the  Com- 
pany the  furthest  do  not  contend  for  more  than  this ; 
and  all  this  I  freely  grant.  But,  granting  all  this, 
they  must  grant  to  me,  in  my  turn,  that  all  political 
power  which  is  set  over  men,  and  that  all  privilege 
claimed  or  exercised  in  exclusion  of  them,  being 
wholly  artificial,  and  for  so  much  a  derogation  from 
the  natural  equality  of  mankind  at  large,  ought  to 
be  some  way  or  other  exercised  ultimately  for  their 
benefit. 

If  this  is  true  with  regard  to  every  species  of  po- 
litical dominion  and  every  description  of  commercial 
privilege,  none  of  which  can  be  original,  self  derived 
rights,  or  grants  for  the  mere  private  benefit  of  the 
holders,  then  such  rights,  or  privileges,  or  whatever 
else  you  choose  to  call  them,  are  all  in  the  strictest 
sense  a  trust :  and  it  is  of  the  very  essence  of  every 
trust  to  be  rendered  accountable,  —  and  even  totally  to 
cease,  when  it  substantially  varies  from  the  purposes 
for  which  alone  it  could  have  a  lawful  existence. 

This  I  conceive.  Sir,  to  be  true  of  trusts  of  power 
vested  in  the  highest  hands,  and  of  such  as  seem  to 


440  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

hold  of  no  human  creature.  But  about  the  applica- 
tion of  this  principle  to  subordinate  derivative  trusts 
I  do  not  see  how  a  controversy  can  be  maintained.  To 
whom,  then,  would  I  make  the  East  India  Company 
accountable  ?  "Why,  to  Parliament,  to  be  sure,  —  to 
Parliament,  from  whom  their  trust  was  derived,  —  to 
Parliament,  which  alone  is  capable  of  comprehending 
the  magnitude  of  its  object,  and  its  abuse,  and  alone 
capable  of  an  effectual  legislative  remedy.  The  very 
charter,  whicli  is  held  out  to  exclude  Parliament  from 
correcting  malversation  with  regard  to  the  high  trust 
vested  in  the  Company,  is  the  very  thing  which  at  once 
gives  a  title  and  imposes  a  duty  on  us  to  interfere  with 
effect,  wherever  power  and  authority  originating  from 
ourselves  are  perverted  from  their  purposes,  and  be- 
come instruments  of  wrong  and  violence. 

If  Parliament,  Sir,  had  nothing  to  do  with  this 
charter,  we  might  have  some  sort  of  Epicurean  ex- 
cuse to  stand  aloof,  indifferent  spectators  of  what 
passes  in  the  Company's  name  in  India  and  in  Lon- 
don. But  if  we  are  the  very  cause  of  the  evil,  we  are 
in  a  special  manner  engaged  to  the  redress ;  and  for 
us  passively  to  bear  with  oppressions  committed  under 
the  sanction  of  our  own  authority  is  in  truth  and 
reason  for  this  House  to  be  an  active  accomplice  in 
the  abuse. 

That  the  power,  notoriously  grossly  abused,  has 
been  bought  from  us  is  very  certain.  But  this  cir- 
cumstance, which  is  urged  against  the  bill,  becomes 
an  additional  motive  for  our  interference,  lest  we 
should  be  thought  to  have  sold  the  blood  of  millions 
of  men  for  the  base  consideration  of  money.  We 
sold,  I  admit,  all  that  we  had  to  sell,  —  that  is,  our 
authority,  not  our  control.  We  had  not  a  right  to 
make  a  market  of  our  duties. 


SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  441 

I  ground  myself,  therefore,  on  this  principle:  — 
that,  if  the  abuse  is  proved,  the  contract  is  broken,  and 
we  reenter  into  all  our  rights,  that  is,  into  tlie  ex- 
ercise of  all  our  duties.  Our  own  authority  is,  indeed, 
as  much  a  trust  originally  as  the  Company's  author- 
ity is  a  trust  derivatively  ;  and  it  is  the  use  we  make 
of  the  resumed  power  that  must  justify  or  condemn 
us  in  the  resumption  of  it.  When  we  have  perfected 
the  plan  laid  before  us  by  the  right  honorable  mover, 
the  world  will  then  see  what  it  is  we  destroy,  and 
what  it  is  we  create.  By  that  test  we  stand  or  fall ; 
and  by  that  test  1  trust  that  it  will  be  found,  in  the 
issue,  that  we  are  going  to  supersede  a  charter  abused 
to  the  full  extent  of  all  the  powers  which  it  could 
abuse,  and  exercised  in  the  plenitude  of  despotism, 
tyranny,  and  corruption,  —  and  that  in  one  and  the 
same  plan  we  provide  a  real  chartered  security  for 
the  rights  of  men,  cruelly  violated  under  that  charter. 

This  bill,  and  those  connected  with  it,  are  intended 
to  form  the  Magna  Charta  of  Hindostan.  Whatever 
the  Treaty  of  Vf  estphalia  is  to  the  liberty  of  the  princes 
and  free  cities  of  the  Empire,  and  to  the  three  relig- 
ions there  professed,  —  whatever  the  Great  Charter, 
the  Statute  of  Tallage,  the  Petition  of  Right,  and  the 
Declaration  of  Right  are  to  Great  Britain,  these  bills 
are  to  the  people  of  India.  Of  this  benefit  I  am  cer- 
tain their  condition  is  capable  :  and  when  I  know 
that  they  arc  capable  of  more,  my  vote  shall  most 
assuredly  be  for  our  giving  to  the  full  extent  of  their 
capacity  of  receiving ;  and  no  charter  of  dominion 
shall  stand  as  a  bar  in  my  way  to  their  charter  of 
safety  and  protection. 

The  strong  admission  I  have  made  of  the  Company's 
rights  (I  am  conscious  of  it)  binds  me  to  do  a  great 


442         SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA   BILL. 

deal.  I  do  not  presume  to  condemn  those  who  argue 
a  priori  against  the  propriety  of  leaving  such  exten- 
sive political  powers  in  the  hands  of  a  company  of 
merchaiits.  I  know  much  is,  and  much  more  may 
be,  said  against  such  a  system.  But,  with  my  partic- 
ular ideas  and  sentiments,  I  cannot  go  that  wa}''  to 
work.  I  feel  an  insuperable  reluctance  in  giving  my 
liand  to  destroy  any  established  institution  of  govern- 
ment, upon  a  theory,  however  plausible  it  may  be. 
My  experience  in  life  teaches  me  nothing  clear  upon 
the  subject.  I  have  known  merchants  with  the  senti- 
ments and  the  abilities  of  great  statesmen,  and  I  have 
seen  persons  in  the  rank  of  statesmen  with  the  con 
ceptions  and  character  of  peddlers.  Indeed,  my  obser- 
vation has  furnished  me  with  nothing  that  is  to  be 
found  in  any  habits  of  life  or  education,  which  tends 
wholly  to  disqualify  men  for  the  functions  of  govern- 
ment, but  that  by  which  the  power  of  exercising  those 
functions  is  very  frequently  obtained :  I  mean  a  s})irit 
and  habits  of  low  cabal  and  intrigue ;  which  I  have 
never,  in  one  instance,  seen  united  with  a  capacity 
for  sound  and  manly  policy. 

To  justify  us  in  taking  the  administration  of  their 
affairs  out  of  the  hands  of  the  East  India  Company, 
on  my  principles,  I  must  see  several  conditions.  1st, 
The  object  affected  by  the  abuse  should  be  great  and 
important.  2nd,  The  abuse  affecting  this  great  ob- 
ject ought  to  be  a  great  abuse.  3d,  It  ought  to  be 
habitual,  and  not  accidental.  4th,  It  ought  to  be 
utterly  incurable  in  the  body  as  it  now  stands  consti- 
tuted. All  this  ought  to  be  made  as  visible  to  me  as 
the  lio'ht  of  the  sun,  before  I  should  strike  off  an  atom 
of  their  charter.     A  right  honorable  gentleman*  has 

*  Mr.  Pitt. 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  443 

said,  and  said,  I  think,  but  once,  and  tliat  very  sliglitly, 
(whatever  his  original  demand  for  a  plan  might  seem 
to  require,)  that  "  there  arc  abuses  in  the  Company's 
government."  If  that  were  all,  the  scheme  of  the 
mover  of  this  bill,  tlie  scheme  of  his  learned  friend, 
and  his  own  scheme  of  reformation,  (if  he  has  any,) 
are  all  equally  needless.  There  are,  and  must  be, 
abuses  in  all  governments.  It  amounts  to  no  more- 
than  a  nugatory  proposition.  But  before  I  consider 
of  what  nature  these  abuses  are,  of  which  the  gentle- 
man speaks  so  very  lightly,  permit  me  to  recall  to 
your  recollection  the  map  of  the  country  which  this 
abused  chartered  right  affects.  This  I  shall  do,  that 
you  may  judge  Avhether  in  that  map  I  can  discover 
anything  like  the  first  of  my  conditions :  that  is, 
whether  the  object  affected  by  the  abuse  of  tlic  East 
India  Company's  power  be  of  importance  sufficient 
to  justify  the  measure  and  means  of  reform  applied 
to  it  in  this  bill. 

With  very  few,  and  those  inconsiderable  intervals, 
the  British  dominion,  either  in  the  Company's  name, 
or  in  the  names  of  princes  absolutely  dependent  up- 
on the  Company,  extends  from  the  mountains  that 
separate  India  from  Tartary  to  Cape  Comorin,  that 
is,  one-and-twenty  degrees  of  latitude! 

In  the  northern  parts  it  is  a  solid  mass  of  land, 
about  eight  hundred  miles  in  length,  and  four  or  five 
hundred  broad.  As  you  go  southward,  it  becomes 
narrower  for  a  space.  It  afterwards  dilates  ;  but, 
narrower  or  broader,  you  possess  the  whole  eastern 
and  northeastern  coast  of  that  vast  country,  quite 
from  tlie  borders  of  Pegu.  —  Bengal,  Baliar,  and 
Orissa,  with  Benares,  (now  unfortunately  in  our  im- 
mediate possession,)  measure  101,978  square  English 


444  SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

miles  :  a  territory  considerably  larger  than  the  whole 
kingdom  of  France.  Oude,  with  its  dependent  prov- 
inces, is  53,286  square  miles :  not  a  great  deal  less 
than  England.  The  Carnatic,  with  Tanjore  and  the 
Circars,  is  65,948  square  miles:  very  considerably 
larger  than  England.  And  the  whole  of  the  Compa- 
ny's dominions,  comprehending  Bombay  and  Salsette, 
amounts  to  281,412  square  miles :  which  forms'  a 
territory  larger  than  any  European  dominion,  Russia 
and  Turkey  excepted.  Through  all  that  vast  extent 
of  country  there  is  not  a  man  who  eats  a  mouthful 
of  rice  but  by  permission  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany. 

So  far  with  regard  to  the  extent.  The  population  of 
this  great  empire  is  not  easy  to  be  calculated.  When 
the  countries  of  which  it  is  composed  came  into  our 
possession,  t],iey  were  all  eminently  peopled,  and  em- 
inently productive,  —  though  at  that  time  considera- 
bly declined  from  their  ancient  prosperity.    But  since 

they  are  come  into  our  hands  ! !     However,  if  we 

make  the  period  of  our  estimate  immediately  before 
the  utter  desolation  of  the  Carnatic,  and  if  we  allow 
for  the  havoc  which  our  government  had  even  then 
made  in  these  regions,  we  cannot,  in  my  opinion, 
rate  the  population  at  much  less  than  thirty  millions 
of  souls  :  more  than  four  times  the  number  of  per- 
sons in  the  island  of  Great  Britain. 

My  next  inquiry  to  that  of  the  number  is  the  qual- 
ity and  description  of  the  inhabitants.  This  multi- 
tude of  men  does  not  consist  of  an  abject  and  barbar- 
ous populace  ;  much  less  of  gangs  of  savages,  like  the 
Guaranies  and  Cliiquitos,  who  wander  on  the  waste 
borders  of  the  River  of  Amazons  or  the  Plato  ;  but  a 
people  for  ages  civilized  and  cultivated,  —  cultivated 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX's    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  445 

Dy  all  the  arts  of  polished  life,  whilst  we  were  yet  in 
the  woods.  There  have  been  (and  still  the  skeletons 
remain)  princes  once  of  great  dignity,  anthority, 
and  opnlence.  There  are  to  he  fonnd  the  chiefs  of 
tribes  and  nations.  There  is  to  he  fonnd  an  ancient 
and  venerable  priesthood,  the  depository  of  their  laws, 
learning,  and  history,  the  gnides  of  the  people  whilst 
living  and  their  consolation  in  death ;  a  nobility  of 
great  antiqnity  and  renown ;  a  multitude  of  cities, 
not  exceeded  in  population  and  trade  by  those  of  the 
first  class  in  Europe  ;  merchants  and  bankers,  indi- 
vidual houses  of  whom  have  once  vied  in  capital  with 
the  Bank  of  England,  wiiose  credit  had  often  sup- 
ported a  tottering  state,  and  preserved  their  govern- 
ments in  the  midst  of  war  and  desolation  ;  millions 
of  ingenious  manufacturers  and  mechanics  ;  millions 
of  the  most  diligent,  and  not  the  least  intelligent, 
tillers  of  the  earth.  Here  are  to  be  found  almost 
all  the  religions  professed  by  men,  —  the  Braminical, 
the  Mussulman,  the  Eastern  and  the  Western  Chris- 
tian. 

If  I  were  to  take  the  whole  aggregate  of  our  pos- 
sessions there,  I  should  compare  it,  as  the  nearest 
parallel  I  can  find,  with  the  Empire  of  Germany. 
Our  immediate  possessions  I  should  compare  with 
the  Austrian  dominions :  and  they  would  not  suffer 
in  the  comparison.  The  Nabob  of  Oude  might  stand 
for  the  King  of  Prussia  ;  the  Nabob  of  Arcot  I  would 
compare,  as  superior  in  territory,  and  equal  in  rev- 
enue, to  the  Elector  of  Saxony.  Cheit  Sing,  the 
Rajah  of  Benares,  might  well  rank  with  the  Prince 
of  Hesse,  at  least ;  and  the  Rajah  of  Tanjore  (though 
hardly  equal  in  extent  of  domuiion,  superior  hi  rev- 
enue) to  the  Elector  of  Bavaria.     The  polygars  and 


4-16  SPEECH    ON    ME.  FOX's    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

the  Northern  zemindars,  and  other  great  chiefs,  might 
well  class  with  the  rest  of  the  princes,  dukes,  counts, 
marquises,  and  hishops  in  the  Empire  ;  all  of  whom  I 
mention  to  honor,  and  surely  without  disparagement 
to  atiy  or  all  of  those  most  respectable  prmces  and 
grandees. 

All  this  vast  mass,  composed  of  so  many  orders  and 
classes  of  men,  is  again  infinitely  diversified  by  man- 
ners, by  religion,  by  hereditary  employment,  through 
all  their  possible  combinations.  This  renders  the 
handling  of  India  a  matter  in  an  high  degree  critical 
and  delicate.  But,  oh,  it  has  been  handled  rudely 
indeed!  Even  some  of  the  reformers  seem  to  have 
forgot  that  they  had  anything  to  do  but  to  regu- 
late the  tenants  of  a  manor,  or  the  shopkeepers  of 
the  next  county  town. 

It  is  an  empire  of  this  extent,  of  this  complicated 
nature,  of  this  dignity  and  importance,  that  I  have 
compared  to  Germany  and  the  German  government, 
—  not  for  an  exact  resemblance,  but  as  a  sort  of  a 
middle  term,  by  which  India  might  bo  approximated 
to  our  understandings,  and,  if  possible,  to  our  feelings, 
in  order  to  awaken  something  of  sympathy  for  the 
unfortunate  natives,  of  which  I  am  afraid  we  are  not 
perfectly  susceptible,  whilst  we  look  at  this  very  re- 
mote object  through  a  false  and  cloudy  medium. 

My  second  condition  necessary  to  justify  me  in 
touching  the  charter  is,  whether  the  Company's 
abuse  of  their  trust  with  regard  to  this  great  ob- 
ject be  an  abuse  of  great  atrocity.  I  shall  beg 
your  permission  to  consider  their  conduct  in  two 
lights :  first  the  political,  and  then  the  commercial. 
Their  political  conduct  (for  distinctness)  I  divide 
again  into  two  heads :  the  external,  in  which  I  mean 


SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX's   EAST   INDIA   BILL.         447 

to  comprehend  their  conduct  in  their  federal  capaci- 
ty, as  it  relates  to  powers  and  states  independent,  or 
that  not  long  since  were  such  ;  the  other  internal,  — 
namely,  their  conduct  to  the  countries  either  imme- 
diately subject  to  the  Company,  or  to  those  who, 
under  the  apparent  government  of  native  sovereigns, 
are  in  a  state  much  lower  and  much  more  miserable 
than  common  subjection. 

The  attention.  Sir,  which  I  wish  to  preserve  to 
method  will  not  be  considered  as  unnecessary  or  af- 
fected. Nothing  else  can  help  me  to  selection  out 
of  the  infinite  mass  of  materials  which  have  passed 
under  my  eye,  or  can  keep  my  mind  steady  to  the 
great  leading  points  I  have  in  view. 

With  regard,  therefore,  to  the  abuse  of  the  exter- 
nal federal  trust,  I  engage  myself  to  you  to  make 
good  these  three  positions.  First,  I  say,  that  from 
Mount  Imaus,  (or  whatever  else  you  call  that  large 
range  of  mountains  that  walls  the  northern  frontier 
of  India,)  where  it  touches  us  in  the  latitude  of 
twenty-nine,  to  Cape  Comorin,  in  the  latitude  of 
eight,  that  there  is  not  a  single  prince,  state,  or  poten- 
tate, great  or  small,  in  India,  with  whom  they  have 
come  into  contact,  whom  they  have  not  sold :  1  say 
sold,  though  sometimes  they  have  not  been  able  to 
deliver  according  to  their  bargain.  Secondly,  I  say, 
that  there  is  not  a  single  treaty  they  have  ever  made 
which  they  have  not  broken.  Thirdly,  I  say,  that 
there  is  not  a  single  prince  or  state,  who  ever  put 
any  trust  in  the  Company,  who  is  not  utterly  ruined ; 
and  that  none  are  in  any  degree  secure  or  flourishing, 
but  in  the  exact  proportion  to  their  settled  distrust 
and  irreconcilable  enmity  to  this  nation. 

These  assertions  are  universal :   I  say,  in  the  full 


448         SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX'S   EAST   INDIA   BILL. 

sense,  universal.  They  regard  the  external  and  polit- 
ical trust  only ;  but  I  shall  produce  others  fully 
equivalent  in  the  internal.  For  the  present,  I  shall 
content  myself  with  explaining  my  meaning ;  and  if 
I  am  called  on  for  proof,  whilst  these  bills  are  depend- 
ing, (which  I  believe  I  shall  not,)  I  will  put  my  fin- 
ger on  the  appendixes  to  the  Reports,  or  on  papers  of 
record  in  the  House  or  the  Committees,  which  I  have 
distinctly  present  to  my  memory,  and  which  I  think 
I  can  lay  before  you  at  half  an  hour's  warning. 

The  first  potentate  sold  by  the  Company  for  money 
was  the  Great  Mogul,  —  the  descendant  of  Tamerlane. 
This  high  personage,  as  high  as  human  veneration 
can  look  at,  is  by  every  account  amiable  in  his  man- 
ners, respectable  for  his  piety,  according  to  his  mode, 
and  accomplished  in  all  the  Oriental  literature.  All 
this,  and  the  title  derived  under  his  charter  to  all 
that  we  hold  in  India,  could  not  save  him  from  the 
general  sale.  Money  is  coined  in  his  name ;  in  his 
name  justice  is  administered ;  he  is  prayed  for  in 
every  temple  through  the  countries  we  possess ;  —  but 
he  was  sold. 

It  is  impossible,  Mr.  Speaker,  not  to  pause  here 
for  a  moment,  to  reflect  on  the  inconstancy  of  hu- 
man greatness,  and  the  stupendous  revolutions  that 
have  happened  in  our  age  of  wonders.  Could  it  be 
believed,  when  I  entered  into  existence,  or  when  you, 
a  younger  man,  were  born,  that  on  this  day,  in  this 
House,  we  should  be  employed  in  discussing  the  con- 
duct of  those  British  subjects  who  had  disposed  of  the 
power  and  person  of  the  Grand  Mogul  ?  This  is  no 
idle  speculation.  Awful  lessons  are  taught  by  it,  and 
by  other  events,  of  which  it  is  not  yet  too  late  to 
profit. 


SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX's    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  449 

This  is  hardly  a  digression :  but  I  return  to  the 
sale  of  the  Mogul.  Two  districts,  Corah  and  Allaha- 
bad, out  of  his  immense  grants,  were  reserved  as  a 
royal  demesne  to  the  donor  of  a  kingdom,  and  the 
rightful  sovereign  of  so  many  nations.  —  After  with- 
holding the  tribute  of  2(30,000^.  a  year,  which  the 
Company  was,  by  the  charter  they  had  received  from 
this  prince,  under  the  most  solemn  obligation  to  pay, 
these  districts  were  sold  to  his  chief  minister,  Sujah 
ul  Dowlah  ;  and  what  may  appear  to  some  the  worst 
part  of  the  transaction,  these  two  districts  were  sold 
for  scarcely  two  years'  purchase.  The  descendant  of 
Tamerlane  now  stands  in  need  almost  of  the  common 
necessaries  of  life  ;  and  in  this  situation  we  do  not 
even  allow  him,  as  bounty,  the  smallest  portion  of 
what  we  owe  him  in  justice. 

The  next  sale  was  that  of  the  whole  nation  of  the 
Rohillas,  which  the  grand  salesman,  without  a  pre- 
tence of  quarrel,  and  contrary  to  his  own  declared 
sense  of  duty  and  rectitude,  sold  to  the  same  Sujah 
ul  Dowlah.  He  sold  the  people  to  utter  extirpation, 
for  the  sum  of  four  hundred  thousand  pounds.  Faith- 
fully was  the  bargain  performed  on  our  side.  Hafiz 
Rhamet,  the  most  eminent  of  their  chiefs,  one  of  the 
bravest  men  of  his  time,  alid  as  famous  throughout 
the  East  for  the  elegance  of  his  literature  and  the 
spirit  of  his  poetical  compositions  ( by  which  he  sup- 
ported the  name  of  Hafiz)  as  for  his  courage,  was 
invaded  with  an  army  of  an  hundred  thousand  men, 
and  an  English  brigade.  This  man,  at  the  head  of 
inferior  forces,  was  slain  valiantly  fighting  for  his 
country.  His  head  was  cut  off,  and  delivered  for 
money  to  a  barbarian.  His  wife  and  children,  per- 
sons of  that  rank,  were  seen  begging  an  handful  of 

VOL.  II.  29 


450  SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL. 

rice  through  the  English  camp.  The  whole  luitioii, 
with  inconsiderable  exceptions,  was  slaughtered  or 
banished.  The  country  was  laid  waste  with  fire  and 
sword  ;  and  that  land,  distinguished  above  most  otli- 
ers  by  the  cheerful  face  of  paternal  government  and 
protected  labor,  the  chosen  seat  of  cultivation  and 
plenty,  is  now  almost  throughout  a  dreary  desert, 
covered  with  rushes,  and  briers,  and  jungles  full  of 
wild  beasts. 

The  British  officer  who  commanded  in  the  delivery 
of  the  people  thus  sold  felt  some  compunction  at 
his  employment.  He  represented  these  enormous 
excesses  to  the  President  of  Bengal,  for  which  he 
received  a  severe  reprimand  from  the  civil  governor ; 
and  I  much  doubt  whether  the  breach  caused  by  the 
conflict  between  the  compassion  of  the  military  and 
the  firmness  of  the  civil  governor  be  closed  at  this 
hour. 

In  Bengal,  Surajah  Dowlah  was  sold  to  Mir  Jaffier ; 
Mir  Jaffier  was  sold- to  Mir  Cossim  ;  and  Mir  Cossim 
was  sold  to  Mir  Jaffier  again.  The  succession  to  Mir 
Jaffi.er  was  sold  to  his  eldest  son  ;  —  another  son  of 
Mir  Jaffier,  Mobarech  ul  Dowlah,  was  sold  to  his 
step-mother.  The  Mahratta  Empire  was  sold  to  Ra- 
gobah ;  and  Eagobah  was  sold  and  delivered  to  the 
Peishwa  of  the  Mahrattas.  Both  Ragobah  and  the 
Peishwa  of  the  Mahrattas  were  offered  to  sale  to  the 
Rajah  of  Berar.  Scindia,  the  chief  of  Malwa,  was  of- 
fered to  sale  to  the  same  Rajah  ;  and  the  Subah  of  tlie 
Deccan  was  sold  to  the  great  trader,  Mahomet  Ali, 
Nabob  of  Arcot.  To  the  same  Nabob  of  Arcot  they 
sold  Hyder  Ali  and  tlie  kingdom  of  Mysore.  To 
Mahomet  Ali  they  twice  sold  the  kingdom  of  Tanjore. 
To  the  same  Mahomet  Ali  they  sold  at  least  twelve 


SPEECH    OX    MR,  FOX's    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  451 

sovereign  princes,  called  the  Polygars.  But  to  keep 
things  even,  the  territory  of  Tinnevellj,  belonging  to 
their  nabob,  they  would  have  sold  to  the  Dutch  ;  and 
to  conclude  the  account  of  sales,  their  great  customer, 
the  Nabob  of  Arcot  himself,  and  his  lawful  succession, 
has  been  sold  to  his  second  son,  Amu'  ul  Omrah,  whose 
character,  views,  and  conduct  are  in  the  accounts 
upon  your  table.  It  remains  with  you  whether  they 
shall  finally  perfect  this  last  bargain. 

All  these  bargains  and  sales  were  regularly  attend- 
ed with  the  waste  and  havoc  of  the  country,  —  always 
by  the  buyer,  and  sometimes  by  the  object  of  the 
sale.  This  was  explained  to  you  by  the  honorable 
mover,  when  he  stated  the  mode  of  paying  debts  due 
from  the  country  powers  to  the  Company.  An  hon- 
orable gentleman,  who  is  not  now  in  his  place,  ob- 
jected to  his  jumping  near  two  thousand  miles  for  an 
example.  But  the  southern  example  is  perfectly  ap- 
plicable to  the  northern  claim,  as  the  northern  is  to 
the  southern  ;  for,  throughout  the  whole  space  of 
these  two  thousand  miles,  take  your  stand  where  you 
will,  the  proceeding  is  perfectly  uniform,  and  what  is 
done  in  one  part  will  apply  exactly  to  the  other. 

]\ry  second  assertion  is,  that  the  Company  never 
has  made  a  treaty  which  they  have  not  broken.  This 
position  is  so  connected  with  that  of  the  sales  of  prov- 
inces and  kingdoms,  with  tlic  negotiation  of  universal 
distraction  in  every  part  of  India,  that  a  very  minute 
detail  may  well  be  spared  on  this  point.  It  has  not 
yet  been  contended,  by  any  enemy  to  the  reform,  that 
they  have  observed  any  })ublic  agreement.  Wlicn  I 
hear  that  they  have  done  so  in  any  one  instance, 
(which  hitherto,  I  confess,  I  never  heard  alleged,)  I 
shall  speak  to  the  particular  ti-caty.     The  Governor- 


452  SPEECH    ON    MK.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL. 

General  has  even  amused  himself  and  the  Court  of 
Directors  in  a  very  singular  letter  to  that  hoard,  in 
winch  he  admits  he  has  not  been  very  delicate  with 
regard  to  public  faith ;  and  he  goes  so  far  as  to  state 
a  regular  estimate  of  the  sums  which  the  Company 
would  have  lost,  or  never  acquired,  if  the  rigid  ideas 
of  public  faith  entertained  by  his  colleagues  had  been 
observed.  The  learned  gentleman  *  over  against  me 
has,  indeed,  saved  me  much  trouble.  On  a  former 
occasion,  he  obtahicd  no  small  credit  for  the  clear 
and  forcible  manner  in  which  he  stated,  what  wo  have 
not  forgot,  and  I  hope  he  has  not  forgot,  that  univer- 
sal, systematic  breach  of  treaties  whicli  had  made  the 
British  faith  proverbial  in  the  East. 

It  only  remains,  Sir,  for  me  just  to  recapitulate 
some  heads.  —  The  treaty  witli  the  Mogul,  by  which 
we  stipulated  to  pay  him  260,000Z.  annually,  was 
broken.  This  treaty  they  have  broken,  and  not  paid 
him  a  shilling.  They  broke  their  treaty  with  him, 
in  which  they  stipulated  to  pay  400,000Z.  a  year  to 
the  Subah  of  Bengal.  They  agreed  with  the  Mogul, 
for  services  admitted  to  have  been  performed,  to  pay 
Nudjif  Cawn  a  pension.  They  broke  this  article  with 
the  rest,  and  stopped  also  this  small  pension.  Tliey 
broke  their  treaties  with  the  Nizam,  and  with  Hyder 
Ali.  As  to  the  Mahrattas,  they  had  so  many  cross 
treaties  with  the  states-general  of  that  nation,  and 
with  each  of  the  chiefs,  tliat  it  was  notorious  that  no 
one  of  these  agreements  could  be  kept  without  grossly 
violating  the  rest.  It  was  observed,  that,  if  the  terms 
of  these  several  treaties  had  been  kept,  two  British 
armies  would  at  one  and  the  same  time  have  met  in 
the  field  to  cut  each  other's  throats.    The  wars  whicli 

*  Mr.  Dundas,  Lord  Advocate  of  Scotland. 


SPEECH    OX    MR.  FOX's    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  453 

desolate  India  originated  from  a  most  atrocious  viola- 
tion of  public  faith  on  our  part.  In  the  midst  of  pro- 
found peace,  the  Company's  troops  invaded  the  Mah- 
ratta  territories,  and  surprised  the  island  and  fortress 
of  Salsette.  The  Mahrattas  nevertheless  yielded  to  a 
treaty  of  peace  by  which  solid  advantages  were  pro- 
cured to  the  Company.  But  this  treaty,  like  every 
other  treaty,  was  soon  violated  by  the  Company. 
Again  the  Company  invaded  the  Mahratta  dominions. 
The  disaster  that  ensued  gave  occasion  to  a  new 
treaty.  The  whole  army  of  the  Company  was  obliged 
in  etlcct  to  surrender  to  this  injured,  betrayed,  and 
insulted  people.  Justly  irritated,  however,  as  they 
were,  the  terms  which  they  prescribed  were  reasona- 
ble and  moderate,  and  their  treatment  of  their  cap- 
tive invaders  of  the  most  distinguished  humanity. 
But  the  humanity  of  the  Mahrattas  was  of  no  power 
whatsoever  to  prevail  on  the  Company  to  attend  to  the 
observance  of  the  terms  dictated  by  their  moderation. 
The  war  was  renewed  with  greater  vigor  than  ever  ; 
and  such  was  their  insatiable  lust  of  plunder,  that 
they  never  would  have  given  ear  to  any  terms  of 
peace,  if  Hyder  Ali  had  not  broke  through  the  Ghauts, 
and,  rushing  like  a  torrent  into  the  Carnatic,  swept 
away  everything  in  his  career.  This  was  in  conse- 
quence of  that  confederacy  which  by  a  sort  of  miracle 
united  the  most  discordant  powers  for  our  destruc- 
tion, as  a  nation  in  Avhicli  no  other  could  put  any 
trust,  and  who  were  the  declared  enemies  of  the  hu- 
man species. 

It  is  very  remarkable  that  the  late  controversy  be- 
tween the  several  presidencies,  and  between  them  and 
the  Court  of  Directors,  with  relation  to  these  wars  and 
treaties,  has  not  been,  which  of  the  parties  might  be 


454  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL. 

defended  for  his  share  in  them,  but  on  which  of  the 
parties  the  guilt  of  all  this  load  of  perfidy  should  be 
fixed.  But  I  am  content  to  admit  all  these  proceed- 
ings to  be  perfectly  regular,  to  be  full  of  honor  and 
good  faith  ;  and  wish  to  fix  your  attention  solely  to 
that  single  transaction  which  the  advocates  of  this 
system  select  for  so  transcendent  a  merit  as  to  cancel 
the  guilt  of  all  the  rest  of  their  proceedings  :  I  mean 
the  late  treaties  with  the  Mahrattas. 

I  make  no  observation  on  the  total  cession  of  terri- 
tory, by  which  they  surrendered  all  they  had  obtained 
by  their  unhappy  successes  in  war,  and  almost  all  they 
had  obtained  under  the  treaty  of  Poorunder.  The 
restitution  was  proper,  if  it  had  been  voluntary  and 
seasonable.  I  attach  on  the  spirit  of  the  treaty,  the 
dispositions  it  showed,  the  provisions  it  made  for  a 
general  peace,  and  the  faith  kept  with  allies  and  con- 
federates, —  in  order  that  the  House  may  form  a  judg- 
ment, from  this  chosen  piece,  of  the  use  which  has 
been  made  (and  is  likely  to  be  made,  if  things  con- 
tinue in  the  same  hands)  of  the  trust  of  the  federal 
powers  of  this  country. 

It  was  the  wish  of  almost  every  Englishman  that 
the  Mahratta  peace  might  lead  to  a  general  one  ;  be- 
cause the  Mahratta  war  was  only  a  part  of  a  general 
confederacy  formed  against  us,  on  account  of  the  uni- 
versal abhorrence  of  our  conduct  which  prevailed  in 
every  state,  and  almost  in  every  house  in  India.  Mr. 
Hastings  was  obliged  to  pretend  some  sort  of  acquies- 
cence in  this  general  and  rational  desire.  He  there- 
fore consented,  in  order  to  satisfy  the  point  of  honor 
of  the  Mahrattas,  that  an  article  should  be  inserted  to 
admit  Hyder  Ali  to  accede  to  the  pacification.  But 
observe,  Sir,  the  spirit  of  this  man,  —  which,  if  it  wero 


SPEECH    ON    MU.  FOX's    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  455 

not  made  manifest  by  a  thousand  things,  and  particu- 
larly by  his  proceedings  with  regard  to  Lord  Macart- 
ney, would  be  sufficiently  manifest  by  this.  What 
sort  of  article,  think  you,  does  he  require  this  essen- 
tial head  of  a  solemn  treaty  of  general  pacification  to 
be  ?  In  his  instruction  to  Mr,  Anderson,  he  desires 
him  to  admit  "  a  vague  article  "  in  favor  of  Ilyder. 
Evasion  and  fraud  were  the  declared  basis  of  the 
treaty.  These  vague  articles,  intended  for  a  more 
vague  performance,  are  the  things  which  have  damned 
our  reputation  in  India. 

Hardly  was  this  vague  article  inserted,  tlian,  with- 
out waiting  for  any  act  on  the  part  of  Hyder,  Mr. 
Hastings  enters  into  a  negotiation  with  the  Mahratta 
chief,  Scindia,  for  a  partition  of  the  territories  of  the 
prince  who  was  one  of  the  objects  to  be  secured  by 
the  treaty.  He  was  to  be  parcelled  out  in  three  parts : 
one  to  Scindia ;  one  to  the  Pcishwa  of  the  Mahrat- 
tas ;  and  the  third  to  the  East  India  Company,  or  to 
(the  old  dealer  and  chapman)  Mahomet  Ali. 

During  the  formation  of  this  project,  Hyder  dies  ; 
and  before  his  son  could  take  any  one  step,  either  to 
conform  to  the  tenor  of  the  article  or  to  contravene 
it,  the  treaty  of  partition  is  renewed  on  the  old  foot- 
ing, and  an  instruction  is  sent  to  Mr.  Anderson  to 
conclude  it  in  form. 

A  circumstance  intervened,  during  the  pendency 
of  this  negotiation,  to  set  off  the  good  faith  of  the 
Company  with  an  additional  brilliancy,  and  to  make 
it  sparkle  and  glow  witli  a  variety  of  splendid  faces. 
General  Matthews  had  reduced  that  most  valuable 
part  of  Hyder's  dominions  called  the  country  of  Bid- 
danore.  When  the  news  reached  Mr.  Hastings,  he 
instructed  Mr.  Anderson  to  contend  for  an  alteration 


456  SPEECH    Oi\   MR.  fox's    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

in  the  treaty  of  partition,  and  to  take  the  Biddaiiore 
country  out  of  the  common  stock  which  was  to  be 
divided,  and  to  keep  it  for  the  Company. 

The  first  ground  for  this  variation  was  its  being  a 
separate  conquest  made  before  tlie  treaty  had  actually 
taken  place.     Here  was  a  new  proof  given  of  the  fair- 
ness, equity,  and  moderation  of  the  Company.     But 
the  second  of  Mr.  Hastings's  reasons  for  retaining  the 
Biddanoro  as  a  separate  portion,  and  his  conduct  on 
that  second  ground,  is  still  more  remarkable.     He  as- 
serted that  that  country  could  not  be  put  into  the  par- 
tition stock,  because  General  Matthews  had  received 
it  on  the  terms  of  some  convention  which  might  be 
incompatible  with  the  partition  proposed.     This  was 
a  reason  in  itself  both  honorable  and  solid ;  and  it 
showed  a  regard  to  faith  somewhere,  and  with  some 
persons.     But  in  order  to  demonstrate  his  utter  con- 
tempt of  the  plighted  faith  which  was  alleged  on  one 
part  as  a  reason  for  departing  from  it  on  another,  and 
to  prove  his  impetuous  desire  for  sowing  a  new  war 
even  in  the  prepared  soil  of  a  general  pacification,  he 
directs  Mr.  Anderson,  if  he  should  find  strong  difficul- 
ties impeding  the  partition  on  the  score  of  the  subtrac- 
tion of  Biddanore,  wholly  to  abandon  that  claim,  and 
to  conclude  the  treaty  on  the  original  terms.    General 
Matthews's  convention  was  just  brought  forward  suffi- 
ciently to  demonstrate  to  the  Mahrattas  the  slippery 
hold  which  they  had  on  their  new  confederate ;  on 
the  other  hand,  tliat  convention  being  instantly  aban- 
doned, the  people  of  India  were  taught  that  no  terms 
on  which  they  can  surrender  to  the  Company  are  to 
be  regarded,  when  farther  conquests  are  in  view. 

Next,  Sir,  let  me  bring  before  you  the  pious  care 
that  was  taken  of  our  allies  under  that  treaty  which 


SPEECH    ON   MR,  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  457 

is  the  subject  of  the  Company's  applauses.  These 
allies  were  Ragonaut  Row,  for  whom  we  had  engaged 
to  find  a  throne  ;  the  Guickwar,  (one  of  the  Guzerat 
princes,)  who  was  to  be  emancipated  from  the  Mahrat- 
ta  authority,  and  to  grow  great  by  several  accessions 
of  dominion ;  and,  lastly,  the  Rana  of  Gohud,  with 
whom  we  had  entered  into  a  treaty  of  partition  for 
eleven  sixteenths  of  our  joint  conquests.  Some  of 
these  inestimable  securities  called  vague  articles  were 
inserted  in  favor  of  them  all. 

As  to  the  first,  the  unhappy  abdicated  Peishwa,  and 
pretender  to  the  Mahratta  throne,  Ragonaut  Row,  was 
delivered  up  to  his  people,  with  an  article  for  safety, 
and  some  provision.  This  man,  knowing  how  little 
vague  the  hatred  of  his  countrymen  was  towards  him, 
and  well  apprised  of  what  black  crimes  he  stood  ac- 
cused, (among  which  our  invasion  of  his  country 
would  not  appear  the  least,)  took  a  mortal  alarm  at 
the  security  we  had  provided  for  him.  He  was  thun- 
derstruck at  the  article  in  his  favor,  by  which  he  was 
surrendered  to  his  enemies.  He  never  had  the  least 
notice  of  the  treaty  ;  and  it  was  apprehended  that  he 
would  fly  to  the  protection  of  Hyder  Ali,  or  some 
other,  disposed  or  able  to  protect  him.  He  was  there- 
fore not  left  without  comfort ;  for  Mr.  Anderson  did 
him  the  favor  to  send  a  special  messenger,  desiring 
him  to  be  of  good  cheer  and  to  fear  nothing.  And 
his  old  enemy,  Scindia,  at  our  request,  sent  him  a 
message  equally  well  calculated  to  quiet  his  appre- 
hensions. 

By  the  same  treaty  the  Guickwar  was  to  come 
again,  with  no  better  security,  under  the  dominion 
of  the  Mahratta  state.  As  to  the  Rana  of  Gohud,  a 
long   negotiation  depended  for  giving  him  up.     At 


458  SPEECH    ox    MR.  POX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL. 

first  this  was  refused  by  Mr.  Hastings  with  great  in- 
dignation ;  at  another  stage  it  was  admitted  as  proper, 
because  he  had  shown  himself  a  most  perfidious  per- 
son. But  at  length  a  method  of  reconciling  these 
extremes  was  found  out,  by  contriving  one  of  the 
usual  articles  in  his  favor.  What  I  believe  will  ap- 
l)ear  beyond  all  belief,  Mr.  Anderson  exchanged  the 
final  ratifications  of  that  treaty  by  which  the  Ran  a 
was  nominally  secured  in  his  possessions,  in  the  camp 
of  the  Mahratta  chief,  Scindia,  whilst  he  was  (really, 
and  not  nominally)  battering  the  castle  of  Gwalior, 
which  we  had  given,  agreeably  to  treaty,  to  this  de- 
luded ally.  Scindia  had  already  reduced  the  town, 
and  was  at  the  very  time,  by  various  detachments, 
reducing,  one  after  another,  the  fortresses  of  our  pro- 
tected ally,  as  well  as  in  the  act  of  chastising  all  the 
rajahs  who  had  assisted  Colonel  Camac  in  his  inva- 
sion. I  have  seen  in  a  letter  from  Calcutta,  that  the 
Rana  of  Gohud's  agent  would  have  represented  these 
hostilities  (which  went  hand  in  hand  with  the  pro- 
tecting treaty)  to  Mr.  Hastings,  but  he  was  not  ad- 
mitted to  his  presence. 

In  this  manner  the  Company  has  acted  with  their 
allies  in  the  Mahratta  war.  But  they  did  not  rest 
here.  The  Mahrattas  were  fearful  lest  the  persons  de- 
livered to  them  by  that  treaty  should  attempt  to  es- 
cape into  the  British  territories,  and  thus  miglit  elude 
the  punishment  intended  for  them,  and,  by  reclaim- 
ing the  treaty,  might  stir  up  new  disturbances.  To 
prevent  this,  they  desired  an  article  to  be  inserted  in 
the  supplemental  treaty,  to  which  they  had  the  ready 
consent  of  Mr.  Hastings,  and  the  rest  of  the  Compa- 
ny's representatives  in  Bengal.  It  was  this  :  "  That 
the  English  and  Mahratta  governments  mutually  agree 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  459 

not  to  afibrd  refuge  to  any  chiefs,  merchants,  or  other 
po'sons,  flying  for  protection  to  the  territories  of  the 
other."  This  was  readily  assented  to,  and  assented 
to  uithout  any  exception  whatever  in  favor  of  our 
surrendered  allies.  On  their  part  a  reciprocity  was 
stipulated  which  was  not  imnatural  for  a  government 
like  the  Company's  to  ask,  —  a  government  conscious 
that  many  subjects  had  been,  and  would  in  future 
be,  driven  to  fly  from  its  jurisdiction. 

To  complete  the  system  of  pacific  intention  ana 
public  faith  which  predominate  in  these  treaties,  Mr. 
Hastings  fairly  revived  to  put  all  peace,  except  on 
the  terms  of  absolute  conquest,  wholly  out  of  his 
own  power.  For,  by  an  article  in  this  second  treaty 
with  Sciudia,  he  binds  the  Company  not  to  make  any 
peace  with  Tippoo  Sahib  without  the  consent  of  the 
Peishwa  of  the  Mahrattas,'and  binds  Scindia  to  him 
by  a  reciprocal  engagement.  The  treaty  between 
France  and  England  obliges  us  mutually  to  with- 
draw our  forces,  if  our  allies  in  India  do  not  accede 
to  the  peace  within  four  months  ;  Mr.  Hastings's 
treaty  obliges  us  to  continue  the  war  as  loug  as  the 
Peishwa  thinks  fit.  We  are  now  in  that  happy  situ- 
ation, that  the  breach  of  the  treaty  with  France,  or 
the  violation  of  that  with  the  Mahrattas,  is  inevitable  ; 
and  we  have  only  to  take  our  choice. 

My  third  assertion,  relative  to  the  abuse  made  of 
the  right  of  war  and  peace,  is,  that  there  arc  none  who 
have  ever  confided  in  us  who  have  not  been  utterly 
ruined.  The  examples  I  have  given  of  Ragonaut 
Row,  of  Guickwar,  of  the  Rana  of  Gohud,  are  recent. 
There  is  proof  more  than  enough  in  the  condition  of 
the  Mogul,  —  in  the  slavery  and  indigence  of  the  Na- 
bob of  Oude,  —  the  exile  of  the  Rajah  of  Benares, — 


.  4G0  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX's    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

the  beggary  of  the  Nabob  of  Bengal,  —  the  undone  and 
captive  condition  of  the  Rajah  and  kingdom  of  Tan- 
jore,  —  the  destruction  of  the  Polygars,  —  and,  lastly, 
in  the  destruction  of  the  Nabob  of  Arcot  himself,  who, 
when  his  dominions  were  invaded,  was  found  entirely 
destitute  of  troops,  provisions,  stores,  and  (as  he  as- 
serts) of  money,  being  a  million  in  debt  to  the  Com- 
pany, and  four  millions  to  others :  the  many  millions 
which  he  had  extorted  from  so  many  extirpated  princes 
and  their  desolated  countries  having  (as  he  has  fre- 
quently hinted)  been  expended  for  the  ground-rent 
of  his  mansion-house  in  an  alley, in  the  suburbs  of 
Madras.  Compare  the  condition  of  all  these  princes 
with  the  power  and  authority  of  all  the  Mahratta 
states,  with  the  independence  and  dignity  of  the 
Subah  of  the  Deccan,  and  the  mighty  strength,  the 
resources,  and  the  manly  struggle  of  Hyder  Ali, — 
and  then  the  House  will  discover  the  effects,  on  everv 
power  in  India,  of  an  easy  confidence  or  of  a  rooted 
distrust  in  the  faith  of  the  Company. 

These  are  some  of  my  reasons,  grounded  on  the 
abuse  of  the  external  political  trust  of  that  body,  for 
thinking  myself  not  only  justified,  but  bound,  to  de- 
clare against  those  chartered  rights  which  produce 
so  many  wrongs,  I  should  deem  myself  the  wicked- 
est of  men,  if  any  vote  of  mine  could  contribute  to 
the  continuance  of  so  great  an  evil. 

Now,  Sir,  according  to  the  plan  I  proposed,  I  shall 
take  notice  of  the  Company's  internal  government,  as 
it  is  exercised  first  on  tlic  dependent  provinces,  and 
then  as  it  affects  those  under  the  direct  and  immedi- 
ate authority  of  that  body.  And  here.  Sir,  before  I 
enter  into  the  spirit  of  their  interior  government, 
permit  me  to  observe  to  you  upon  a  few  of  the  many 


SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  161 

lines  of  diflferonce  which  are  to  he  found  between  tlie 
vices  of  the  Company's  government  and  those  of  the 
conquerors  who  preceded  us  in  India,  that  we  may 
be  enabled  a  little  the  better  to  see  our  way  in  an 
attempt  to  the  necessary  reformation. 

The  several  irruptions  of  Arabs,  Tartars,  and  Per- 
sians into  India  were,  for  the  greater  part,  ferocious, 
bloody,  and  wasteful  in  the  extreme :  our  entrance 
into  the  dominion  of  that  country  was,  as  generally, 
with  small  comparative  effusion  of  blood,  —  being  in- 
troduced by  various  frauds  and  delusions,  and  by  tak- 
ing advantage  of  the  incurable,  blind,  and  senseless 
animosity  which  the  several  country  powers  bear  to- 
wards each  other,  rather  than  by  open  force.  But 
the  difference  in  favor  of  the  first  conquerors  is  this. 
The  x^siatic  conquerors  very  soon  abated  of  their  fero- 
city, because  they  made  the  conquered  country  their 
own.  Tlicy  rose  or  fell  with  the  rise  or  fall  of  the 
territory  they  lived  in.  Fathers  there  deposited  the 
hopes  of  their  posterity ;  and  children  there  beheld 
the  monuments  of  their  fathers.  Here  their  lot  was 
finally  cast ;  and  it  is  the  natural  wish  of  all  that 
their  lot  should  not  be  cast  in  a  bad  land.  Poverty, 
sterility,  and  desolation  arc  not  a  recreating  prospect 
to  the  eye  of  man ;  and  there  are  very  few  who  can 
bear  to  grow  old  among  the  curses  of  a  whole  people. 
If  their  passion  or  their  avarice  drove  the  Tartar  lords 
to  acts  of  rapacity  or  tyranny,  there  was  time  enough, 
even  in  the  short  life  of  man,  to  bring  round  the  ill 
effects  of  an  abuse  of  power  upon  the  power  itself. 
If  hoards  were  made  by  violence  and  tyranny,  they 
were  still  domestic  hoards  ;  and  domestic  profusion, 
or  the  rapine  of  a  more  powerful  and  prodigal  hand, 
restored  them  to  the  people.     With  many  disorders, 


462  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S   EAST    INDIA    BILL. 

and  with  few  political  checks  upon  power,  Nature  had 
still  fair  play  ;  the  sources  of  acquisition  were  not 
dried  up  ;  and  therefore  the  trade,  the  manufiictures, 
and  the  commerce  of  the  country  flourished.  Even 
avarice  and  usury  itself  operated  both  for  the  preser- 
vation and  the  employment  of  national  wealth.  The 
husbandman  and  manufacturer  paid  heavy  interest, 
but  then  they  augmented  the  fund  from  whence  they 
were  again  to  borrow.  Their  resources  were  dearly 
bought,  but  they  were  sure  ;  and  tho  general  stock  of 
the  community  grew  by  the  general  eifort. 

But  under  the  English  government  all  this  order 
is  reversed.  The  Tartar  invasion  was  mischievous  ; 
but  it  is  our  protection  that  destroys  India.  It  was 
their  enmity  ;  but  it  is  our  friendship.  Our  conquest 
there,  after  twenty  years,  is  as  crude  as  it  was  the 
first  day.  The  natives  scarcely  know  what  it  is  to  see 
the  gray  head  of  an  Englishman.  Young  men  (boys 
almost)  govern  there,  without  society  and  without 
sympathy  with  the  natives.  They  have  no  more  social 
habits  with  the  people  than  if  they  still  resided  in 
England,  —  nor,  indeed,  any  species  of  intercourse, 
but  that  which  is  necessary  to  making  a  sudden  for- 
tune, with  a  view  to  a  remote  settlement.  Animated 
with  all  the  avarice  of  age  and  all  the  impetuosity  of 
youth,  they  roll  in  one  after  another,  wave  after  wave  ; 
and  there  is  nothing  before  the  eyes  of  the  natives  but 
an  endless,  hopeless  prospect  of  new  flights  of  birds  of 
prey  and  passage,  with  appetites  continually  renewing 
for  a  food  that  is  continually  wasting.  Every  rupee 
of  profit  made  by  an  Englishman  is  lost  forever  to 
Lidia.  "With  us  are  no  rctributory  superstitions,  by 
which  a  foundation  of  charity  compensates,  through 
ages,  to  the  poor,  for  the  rapine  and  injustice  of  a 


(SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  463 

day.  With  us  no  pride  erects  stately  monuments 
"wliicli  repair  tlie  mischiefs  which  pride  had  produced, 
and  whicli  adorn  a  country  out  of  its  own  spoils. 
England  has  erected  no  churches,  no  hospitals,*  no 
palaces,  no  schools  ;  England  has  built  no  bridges, 
made  no  high-roads,  cut  no  navigations,  dug  out  no 
reservoirs.  Every  other  conqueror  of  every  other  de- 
scription has  left  some  monument,  either  of  state  or 
beneficence,  behind  him.  Were  we  to  be  driven  out 
of  India  this  day,  nothing  would  remain  to  tell  that 
it  had  been  possessed,  during  the  inglorious  period 
of  our  dominion,  by  anything  better  than  the  orang 
outang  or  the  tiger. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  boys  we  send  to  India 
worse  than  in  the  boys  whom  we  are  whipping  at 
school,  or  that  we  see  trailing  a  pike  or  bending  over 
a  desk  at  home.  But  as  English  youth  in  India'drink 
the  intoxicating  draught  of  authority  and  dominion 
before  their  heads  are  able  to  bear  it,  and  as  they  are 
full  grown  in  fortune  long  before  they  are  ripe  in  prin- 
ciple, neither  Nature  nor  reason  have  any  opportu- 
nity to  exert  themselves  for  remedy  of  the  excesses 
of  their  premature  power.  The  consequences  of 
their  conduct,  which  in  good  minds  (and  many  of 
theirs  are  probably  such)  might  produce  penitence  or 
amendment,  are  unable  to  pursue  the  rapidity  of 
their  flight.  Their  prey  is  lodged  in  England  ;  and 
the  cries  of  India  are  given  to  seas  and  winds,  to  be 
blown  about,  in  every  breaking  up  of  the  monsoon, 
over  a  remote  and  unhearing  ocean.  In  India  all  the 
vices  operate  by  which  sudden  fortune  is  acquired  : 
in  England  are  often  displayed,  by  the  same  persons, 

*  The  paltry  foundation  at  Calcutta  is  scarcely  worth  naminy  as 
an  exception 


464  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX's    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

tlie  virtues  which  dispense  hereditary  wealth.  Ar- 
rived ill  England,  the  destroyers  of  the  nobility  and 
gentry  of  a  wliole  kingdom  will  find  the  best  company 
in  this  nation  at  a  board  of  elegance  and  hospitality. 
Here  the  manufacturer  and  husbandman  will  bless 
the  just  and  punctual  hand  that  in  India  has  torn  the 
cloth  from  the  loom,  or  wrested  the  scanty  portion  of 
rice  and  salt  from  tlie  peasant  of  Bengal,  or  wrung 
from  him  the  very  opium  in  which  he  forgot  his  oppres- 
sions and  his  oppressor.  They  marry  into  your  fam- 
ilies ;  they  enter  into  your  senate ;  they  ease  your 
estates  by  loans ;  they  raise  their  value  by  demand ; 
they  cherish  and  protect  your  relations  which  lie  heavy 
on  your  patronage  ;  and  there  is  scarcely  an  house  in 
the  kingdom  that  does  not  feel  some  concern  and 
interest  that  makes  all  reform  of  our  Eastern  gov- 
ernment appear  officious  and  disgusting,  and,  on  the 
whole,  a  most  discouraging  attempt.  In  such  an  at- 
tempt you  hurt  those  who  are  able  to  return  kindness 
or  to  resent  injury.  If  you  succeed,  you  save  those 
who  cannot  so  much  as  give  you  thanks.  All  these 
things  show  the  difficulty  of  the  work  we  have  on 
hand  :  but  they  show  its  necessity,  too.  Our  Indian 
government  is  in  its  best  state  a  grievance.  It  is  ne- 
cessary that  the  correctives  should  be  uncommonly 
vigorous,  and  the  work  of  men  sanguine,  warm,  and 
even  impassioned  in  the  cause.  But  it  is  an  arduous 
thing  to  plead  against  abuses  of  a  power  which  origi- 
nates from  your  own  country,  and  affects  those  whom 
we  are  used  to  consider  as  strangers. 

I  shall  certainly  endeavor  to  modulate  myself  to 
this  temper  ;  though  I  am  sensible  that  a  cold  style 
of  describing  actions,  which  appear  to  me  in  a  very 
affecting  light,  is  equally  contrary  to  the  justice  due 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  465 

to  the  people  and  to  all  genuine  human  feelings 
about  them.  I  ask  pardon  of  truth  and  Nature  for 
this  compliance.  But  I  shall  be  very  sparing  of  epi- 
thets citlier  to  persons  or  things.  It  has  been  said, 
(and,  with  regard  to  one  of  them,  with  truth,)  th:it 
Tacitus  and  Machiavel,  by  their  cold  way  of  relat- 
ing enormous  crimes,  have  in  some  sort  appeared  not 
to  disapprove  them  ;  that  they  seem  a  sort  of  profes- 
sors of  tlie  art  of  tyranny  ;  and  that  they  corrupt  the 
minds  of  their  readers  by  not  expressing  the  detes- 
tation and  horror  that  naturally  belong  to  horrible 
and  detestable  proceedings.  But  we  are  in  gener- 
al, Sir,  so  little  acquainted  with  Indian  details,  the 
instruments  of  oppression  under  which  the  people 
suffer  arc  so  hard  to  be  understood,  and  even  the 
very  names  of  the  sufferers  are  so  uncouth  and 
strange  to  our  ears,  that  it  is  very  difficult  for  our 
sympathy  to  fix  upon  these  objects.  I  am  sure  that 
some  of  us  have  come  down  stairs  from  the  commit- 
tee-room with  impressions  on  our  minds  which  to  us 
were  the  inevitable  results  of  our  discoveries,  yet,  if 
we  should  venture  to  express  ourselves  in  the  proper 
language  of  our  sentiments  to  other  gentlemen  not 
at  all  prepared  to  enter  into  the  cause  of  them,  noth- 
ing could  appear  more  harsh  and  dissonant,  more 
violent  and  unaccountable,  than  our  language  and 
behavior.  All  these  circumstances  are  not,  I  confess, 
very  favorable  to  the  idea  of  our  attempting  to  gov- 
ern India  at  all.  But  there  we  are ;  there  we  are 
placed  by  the  Sovereign  Disposer ;  and  we  must  do 
the  best  we  can  in  our  situation.  Tlie  situation  of 
man  is  the  preceptor  of  his  duty. 

Upon  the  plan  wliich  I  laid  down,  and  to  which  I 
beg  leave  to  return,  I  was  considering  the  conduct  of 

VOL.  II.  30 


466  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

the  Company  to  those  nations  which  are  indirectly 
subject  to  their  authority.  The  most  considerable 
of  the  dependent  princes  is  the  Nabob  of  Oude.  My 
right  honorable  friend,*  to  whom  we  owe  the  reme- 
dial bills  on  your  table,  has  already  pointed  out  to 
you,  in  one  of  the  reports,  the  condition  of  that 
prince,  and  as  it  stood  in  the  time  he  alluded  to.  I 
shall  only  add  a  few  circumstances  that  may  tend  to 
awaken  some  sense  of  the  manner  in  which  the  con- 
dition of  the  people  is  affected  by  that  of  the  prince, 
and  involved  in  it,  —  and  to  show  you,  that,  when  we 
talk  of  the  sufferings  of  princes,  we  do  not  lament  the 
oppression  of  individuals,  —  and  that  in  these  cases  the 
high  and  the  low  suffer  together. 

In  the  year  1779,  the  Nabob  of  Oude  represented, 
through  the  British  resident  at  his  court,  that  the 
number  of  Company's  troops  stationed  in  his  domin- 
ions was  a  main  cause  of  his  distress,  —  and  that  all 
those  which  he  was  not  bound  by  treaty  to  maintain 
should  be  withdrawn,  as  they  had  greatly  diminished 
his  revenue  and  impoverished  his  country.  I  will 
read  you,  if  you  please,  a  few  extracts  from  these 
representations. 

He  states,  "  that  the  country  and  cultivation  are 
abandoned,  and  this  year  in  particular,  from  the 
excessive  drought  of  the  season,  deductions  of  many 
lacs  having  been  allowed  to  the  farmers,  who  are 
still  left  unsatisfied  "  ;  and  then  ho  proceeds  with  a 
long  detail  of  his  own  distress,  and  that  of  his  family 
and  all  his  dependants;  and  adds,  "that  the  new- 
raised  brigade  is  not  only  quite  useless  to  my  govern- 
ment, but  is,  moreover,  the  cause  of  much  loss  both  in 
revenues  and  customs.     The  detached  body  of  troops 

*  Mr.  Fox. 


ISPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  467 

under  European  officers  bring  nothing  hut  confusion 
to  the  affairs  of  my  government,  and  are  entirely  tJieir 
oion  masters^  Mr.  Middleton,  Mr.  Hastings's  con- 
fidential resident,  vouches  for  the  truth  of  this  repre- 
sentation in  its  fullest  extent.  "  I  am  concerned  to 
confess  that  there  is  too  good  ground  for  this  plea. 
The  misfortune  has  been  general  throughout  the  whole 
of  the  vizier^s  [the  Nabob  of  Oude]  dominions,  obvi- 
ous to  everybody  ;  and  so  fatal  have  been  its  conse- 
quences, that  no  person  of  either  credit  or  character 
would  enter  into  engagements  with  government  for 
farming  the  country."  Ho  then  proceeds  to  give 
strong  instances  of  the  general  calamity,  and  its 
effects. 

It  was  now  to  be  seen  what  steps  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral and  Council  took  for  the  relief  of  this  distressed 
country,  long  laboring  under  the  vexations  of  men, 
and  now  stricken  by  the  hand  of  God.  The  case  of 
a  general  famine  is  known  to  relax  the  severity  even 
of  the  most  rigorous  government.  —  Mr.  Hastings 
does  not  deny  or  show  the  least  doubt  of  the  fact. 
The  representation  is  humble,  and  almost  abject.  On 
this  representation  from  a  great  prince  of  the  distress 
of  his  subjects,  Mr.  Hastings  falls  into  a  violent  pas- 
sion, —  such  as  (it  seems)  would  be  unjustifiable  in 
any  one  who  speaks  of  any  part  of  his  conduct.  He 
declares  "  that  the  demands,  the  tone  in  wliieh  they 
were  asserted,  and  the  season  in  which  they  were 
made,  are  all  equally  alarming,  and  appear  to  liim  to 
require  an  adequate  degree  of  firmness  in  this  board 
in  opposition  to  them."  He  proceeds  to  deal  out  very 
unreserved  language  on  the  person  and  character  of 
the  Nabob  and  liis  ministers.  He  declares,  that,  in  a 
division  between  him  and  the  Nabob,  "  the  stro7i,QeM 


4G8         SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

must  decide.'"  With  regard  to  the  urgent  and  instant 
necessity  from  the  faihire  of  the  crops,  he  says,  "  that 
perhaps  expedients  may  he  found  for  affording  a  grad- 
ual relief  from  the  burden  of  which  he  so  heavily 
complains,  and  it  shall  be  my  endeavor  to  seek  them 
out "  :  and  lest  he  should  be  suspected  of  too  much 
haste  to  alleviate  sufferings  and  to  remove  violence, 
he  says,  "  that  these  must  be  gradually  applied,  and 
their  complete  effect  may  be  distant ;  and  this,  I  con- 
ceive, is  all  he  can  claim  of  right." 

This  complete  effect  of  his  lenity  is  distant  indeed. 
Rejecting  this  demand,  (as  he  calls  the  Nabob's  abject 
supplication,)  ho  attributes  it,  as  he  usually  does  all 
things  of  the  kind,  to  the  division  in  their  government, 
and  says,  "  This  is  a  powerful  motive  with  me  (how- 
ever inclined  I  might  be,  upon  any  other  occasion,  to 
yield  to  some  joar^  of  his  demand)  to  give  them  an  abso- 
lute and  unconditional  refusal  upon  the  present,  —  and 
even  to  bring  to  punishment,  if  my  influence  can  produce 
that  effect,  those  incendiaries  who  have  endeavored  to 
make  themselves  the  instruments  of  division  between  us.'' ^ 

Here,  Sir,  is  much  heat  and  passion,  —  but  no  more 
consideration  of  the  distress  of  the  country,  from  a 
failure  of  the  means  of  subsistence,  and  (if  possible) 
the  worse  evil  of  an  useless  and  licentious  soldiery, 
than  if  they  were  the  most  contemptible  of  all  trifles. 
A  letter  is  written,  in  consequence,  in  such  a  style  of 
lofty  despotism  as  I  believe  has  hitherto  been  unex- 
ampled and  unheard  of  in  the  records  of  the  East. 
The  troops  were  continued.  The  gradual  relief,  whose 
effect  was  to  be  so  distant,  has  never  been  substantially 
and  beneficially  applied,  —  and  the  country  is  ruined. 

Mr.  Hastings,  two  years  after,  when  it  was  too  late, 
«aw  the  absolute  necessity  of  a  removal  of  the  intoler- 


SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX's    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  469 

able  grievance  of  tins  licentious  soldiery,  which,  under 
pretence  of  defending  it,  held  the  country  under  mil- 
itary execution.  A  new  treaty  and  arrangement,  ac- 
cording to  the  pleasure  of  Mr.  Hastings,  took  place ; 
and  this  new  treaty  was  broken  in  the  old  manner, 
in  every  essential  article.  The  soldiery  were  again 
sent,  and  again  set  loose.  Tlie  effect  of  all  his  ma- 
noeuvres, from  which  it  seems  he  was  sanguine 
enough  to  entertain  hopes,  upon  the  state  of  the 
country,  he  himself  informs  us,  —  "The  event  has 
proved  the  reverse  of  these  hopes,  and  accumulation 
of  distress,  debasement,  and  dissatisfactioii  to  the  Na- 
bob, and  disappointment  and  disgrace  to  me. — Every 
measure  [which  he  had  himself  proposed]  has  been 
so  conducted  as  to  give  him  cause  of  displeasure. 
There  are  no  officers  established  by  which  liis  affairs 
could  be  regularly  conducted  :  mean,  incapable,  and 
indigent  men  have  been  appointed.  A  number  of  the 
districts  without  authority,  and  without  the  means 
of  personal  protection  ;  some  of  them  have  been  mur- 
dered by  the  zemindars,  and  those  zemindars,  instead 
of  punishment,  have  been  permitted  to  retain  their 
zemindaries,  with  independent  authority  ;  all  the  oth- 
er zemindars  suffered  to  rise  up  in  rebellion,  and  to 
insult  the  authority  of  the  sircar,  without  any  at- 
tempt made  to  suppress  them ;  and  the  Company's 
debt,  instead  of  being  discharged  by  the  assignments 
and  extraordinary  sources  of  money  provided  for  that 
purpose,  is  likely  to  exceed  even  the  amount  at  tvhich  it 
stood  at  the  time  in  ivhich  the  arrangement  with  his  Ex- 
cellency was  eoncluded.^^  The  House  will  smilS  at  the 
resource  on  which  the  Directors  take  credit  as  such  a 
certainty  in  their  curious  account. 

This  is  Mr.  Hastings's  own  narrative  of  the  effects 


470  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX's    EAST    INDIA    BILL. 

of  his  own  settlement.  This  is  the  state  of  the  coiin- 
tiy  which  we  have  been  told  is  in  perfect  peace  and 
order  ;  and,  what  is  cnrious,  he  informs  us,  that  every 
•part  of  tliis  was  foretold  to  Mm  in  the  order  and  manner 
in  which  it  happened^  at  the  very  time  he  made  his  ar- 
rangement of  men  and  measures. 

The  invariable  course  of  the  Company's  policy  is 
this :  either  they  set  up  some  prince  too  odious  to 
maintain  himself  without  the  necessity  of  their  as- 
sistance, or  they  soon  render  him  odious  by  making 
him  the  instrument  of  their  government.  In  that 
case  troops  are  bountifully  sent  to  him  to  maintain 
his  authority.  That  he  should  have  no  want  of  assist- 
ance, a  civil  gentleman,  called  a  Resident,  is  kept  at 
his  court,  who,  under  pretence  of  providing  duly  for 
the  pay  of  these  troops,  gets  assignments  on  the  reve- 
nue into  his  hands.  Under  his  provident  manage- 
ment, debts  soon  accumulate  ;  new  assignments  are 
made  for  these  debts ;  until,  step  by  step,  the  whole 
revenue,  and  with  it  the  whole  power  of  the  country, 
is  delivered  into  his  hands.  The  military  do  not  be- 
hold without  a  virtuous  emulation  the  moderate  gains 
of  the  civil  department.  They  feel  that  in  a  country 
driven  to  habitual  rebellion  by  the  civil  government 
the  military  is  necessary  ;  and  they  will  not  permit 
their  services  to  go  unrewarded.  Tracts  of  country 
are  delivered  over  to  their  discretion.  Then  it  is 
found  proper  to  convert  their  commanding  officers 
into  farmers  of  revenue.  Thus,  betv/een  the  well-paid 
civil  and  well-rewarded  military  establishment,  the 
situatidn  of  the  natives  may  be  easily  conjectured. 
The  authority  of  the  regular  and  lawful  government 
is  everywhere  and  in  every  point  extinguished.  Dis- 
orders and  violences   arise ;   they  are  repressed  by 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX's    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  471 

other  disorders  and  otlicr  violences.  Wherever  the 
collectors  of  the  revenue  and  the  farming  colonels 
and  majors  move,  ruiii  is  about  them,  rebellion  before 
and  behind  them.  The  people  in  crowds  fly  out  of 
the  country;  and  the  frontier  is  guarded  by  lines  of 
troops,  not  to  exclude  an  enemy,  but  to  prevent  the 
escape  of  the  inhabitants. 

By  these  means,  in  the  course  of  not  more  than 
four  or  live  years,  this  once  opulent  and  flourishing 
country,  which,  by  the  accounts  given  in  the  Bengal 
consultations,  yielded  more  than  three  crore  of  sicca 
rupees,  that  is,  above  three  millions  sterling,  annually, 
is  reduced,  as  far  as  I  can  discover,  in  a  matter  pur- 
posely involved  in  the  utmost  perplexity,  to  less  than 
one  million  three  hundred  thousand  pounds,  and  that 
exacted  by  every  mode  of  rigor  that  can  be  devised. 
To  complete  the  business,  most  of  the  wretched  rem- 
nants of  this  revenue  are  mortgaged,  and  delivered 
into  the  hands  of  the  usurers  at  Benares  (for  there 
alone  are  to  be  found  some  lingering  remains  of  the 
ancient  wealth  of  these  regions)  at  an  interest  of  near 
thirty  per  cent  per  annum. 

The  revenues  in  this  manner  failing,  they  seized 
upon  the  estates  of  every  person  of  eminence  in  the 
country,  and,  under  the  name  of  7-esumption,  confis- 
cated their  property.  I  wish,  Sir,  to  be  understood 
universally  and  literally,  when  I  assert  that  there  is 
not  left  one  man  of  property  and  substance  for  his 
rank  iu  the  whole  of  these  provinces,  in  provinces 
which  are  nearly  the  extent  of  England  and  Wales 
taken  together :  not  one  landholder,  not  one  banker, 
not  one  merchant,  not  one  even  of  those  who  usually 
perish  last,  the  ultimwn  moi-iena  in  a  ruined  state,  not 
one  farmer  of  revenue. 


472  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX's    EAST    INDIA    BILL. 

One  country  for  a  while  remained,  which  stood  as 
an  island  in  the  midst  of  the  grand  waste  of  the 
Company's  dominion.  My  right  honorable  friend,  in 
his  admirable  speech  on  moving  the  bill,  just  touched 
the  situation,  the  otfences,  and  the  punishment  of  a 
native  prince,  called  Fizulla  Klian.  This  man,  by 
policy  and  force,  had  protected  himself  from  the  gen- 
eral extirpation  of  the-Rohilla  chiefs.  He  was  secured 
(if  that  were  any  security)  by  a  treaty.  It  was  stated 
to  you,  as  it  was  stated  by  the  enemies  of  that  unfor- 
tunate man,  "  that  the  whole  of  his  country  is  what 
the  whole  country  of  the  Rohillas  was,  cultivated  like 
a  garden,  without  one  neglected  spot  in  it."  Another 
accuser  says,  — "  Fyzoolah  Khan,  thougli  a  bad  sol- 
dier, [that  is  the  true  source  of  his  misfortune,]  has 
approved  himself  a  good  aumil,  —  having,  it  is  sup- 
posed, in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  at  least  doubled 
the  population  and  revenue  of  his  country."  In  an- 
other part  of  the  correspondence  he  is  charged  with 
making  his  country  an  asylum  for  the  oppressed 
peasants  who  fly  from  the  territories  of  Oude.  The 
improvement  of  his  revenue,  arising  from  this  single 
crime,  (which  Mr.  Hastings  considers  as  tantamount 
to  treason,)  is  stated  at  an  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand pounds  a  year. 

Dr.  Swift  somewhere  says,  that  he  who  could  make 
two  blades  of  grass  grow  where  but  one  grew  before 
was  a  greater  benefactor  to  the  human  race  than  all 
the  politicians  that  ever  existed.  This  prince,  who 
would  have  been  deified  by  antiquity,  Avlio  would 
have  been  ranked  with  Osiris,  and  Bacchus,  and 
Ceres,  and  the  divinities  most  propitious  to  men, 
was,  for  those  very  merits,  by  name  attacked  by  the 
Company's  government,  as  a  cheat,  a  robber,  a  traitor. 


SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  473 

In  the  same  breath  in  wliich  he  was  accused  as  a 
rebel,  he  was  ordered  at  ouce  to  furnish  five  thou- 
sand horse.  On  delay,  or  (according  to  the  technical 
phrase,  when  any  remonstrance  is  made  to  them)  "  07i 
evasion,^''  he  was  declared  a  violator  of  treaties,  and 
everything  he  had  was  to  be  taken  from  him.  Not 
one  word,  however,  of  horse  in  this  treaty. 

The  territory  of  this  Fizulla  Khan,  Mr.  Speaker, 
is  less  than  the  County  of  Norfolk.  It  is  an  inland 
country,  full  seven  hundred  miles  from  any  seaport, 
and  not  distinguished  for  any  one  considerable  branch 
of  manufacture  whatsoever.  From  this  territory  sev- 
eral very  considerable  siuns  had  at  several  times  been 
paid  to  the  British. resident.  The  demand  of  cavalry, 
without  a  shadow  or  decent  pretext  of  right,  amount- 
ed to  three  hundred  thousand  a  year  more,  at  the  low- 
est computation ;  and  it  is  stated,  by  the  last  person 
sent  to  negotiate,  as  a  demand  of  little  use,  if  it  could 
be  complied  with,  —  but  that  the  compliance  was  im- 
possible, as  it  amounted  to  more  than  his  territories 
could  supply,  if  there  had  been  no  other  demand 
upon  him.  Three  hundred  thousand  pounds  a  year 
from  an  inland  country  not  so  large  as  Norfolk ! 

Tlie  thing  most  extraordinary  was  to  hear  the 
culprit  defend  himself  from  the  imputation  of  his 
virtues,  as  if  they  had  been  the  blackest  offences. 
He  extenuated  the  superior  cultivation  of  his  coun- 
try. He  denied  its  population.  He  endeavored  to 
prove  that  he  had  often  sent  back  the  poor  peasant 
that  sought  shelter  with  him. —  I  can  make  no  obser- 
vation on  this. 

After  a  variety  of  extortions  and  vexations,  too  fa- 
tiguing to  you,  too  disgusting  to  me,  to  go  tlu'ough 
with,  they  found  "  that  they  ought  to  be  in  a  bet- 


474  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX's    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

ter  state  to  warrant  forciblo  means  "  ;  they  therefore 
contented  themselves  with  a  gross  sum  of  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  pounds  for  tlieir  present 
demand.  They  offered  liim,  indeed,  an  indemnity 
from  their  exactions  in  future  for  three  hundred 
thousand  pounds  more.  But  he  refused  to  buy  their 
securities,  —  pleading  (probably  with  truth)  his  pov- 
erty ;  but  if  the  plea  were  not  founded,  in  my  opin- 
ion very  wisely:  not  choosing  to  deal  any  more  in 
that  dangerous  commodity  of  the  Company's  fliith  ; 
and  thinking  it  better  to  oppose  distress  and  unarmed 
obstinacy  to  uncolored  exaction  than  to  subject  him- 
self to  be  considered  as  a  cheat,  if  he  should  make  a 
treaty  in  the  least  beneficial  to  himself. 

Thus  they  executed  an  exemplary  punishment  on 
Fizulla  Khan  for  the  culture  of  his  country.  But, 
conscious  that  the  prevention  of  evils  is  the  great  ob- 
ject of  all  good  regulation,  they  deprived  him  of  the 
means  of  increasing  that  criminal  cultivation  in  future, 
by  exhausting  his  coffers  ;  and  that  the  population  of 
his  country  should  no  more  be  a  standing  reproach 
and  libel  on  the  Company's  government,  they  bound 
him  by  a  positive  engagement  not  to  afford  any  shel- 
ter whatsoever  to  the  farmers  and  laborers  who  should 
seek  refuge  in  his  territories  from  the  exactions  of  the 
British  residents  in  Oude.  When  they  had  done  all 
this  effectually,  they  gave  him  a  full  and  complete 
acquittance  from  all  charges  of  rebellion,  or  of  any 
intention  to  rebel,  or  of  his  having  originally  had  any 
interest  in,  or  any  means  of,  rebellion. 

These  intended  rebellions  are  one  of  the  Company's 
standing  resources.  When  money  has  been  thought 
to  be  heaped  up  anywhere,  its  owners  are  luiivcrsally 
accused  of  rebellion,  until  they  are  acquitted  of  their 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX's    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  475 

money  and  their  treasons  at  once.  The  money  once 
taken,  all  accusation,  trial,  and  punishment  ends.  It 
is  so  settled  a  resource,  that  I  rather  wonder  how  it 
comes  to  be  omitted  in  the  Directors'  account ;  but  I 
take  it  for  granted  tliis  omission  will  be  supplied  in 
their  next  edition. 

The  Company  stretched  this  resource  to  the  full 
extent,  Avhen  they  accused  two  old  women,  in  the  re- 
motest corner  of  India,  (who  could  have  no  possible 
view  or  motive  to  raise  disturbances,)  of  being  en- 
gaged in  rebellion,  with  an  intent  to  drive  out  the 
English  nation,  in  whose  protection,  purchased  by 
money  and  secured  by  treaty,  rested  the  sole  hope  of 
their  existence.  But  the  Company  wanted  money, 
and  the  old  women  must  bo  guilty  of  a  plot.  They 
were  accused  of  rebellion,  and  they  were  convicted 
of  Avealth.  Twice  had  great  sums  been  extorted  from 
them,  and  as  often  had  the  British  faith  guarantied 
the  remainder.  A  body  of  British  troops,  with  one 
of  the  military  farmers-general  at  theii'  head,  was  sent 
to  seize  upon  the  castle  in  which  tliese  helpless  women 
resided.  Their  chief  eunuchs,  who  were  their  agents, 
their  guardians,  protectors,  persons  of  high  rank  ac- 
cording to  the  Eastern  manners,  and  of  great  trust, 
were  thrown  into  dungeons,  to  make  them  discover 
their  hidden  treasures  ;  and  there  they  lie  at  present. 
Tlie  lands  assigned  for  the  maintenance  of  the  women 
were  seized  and  confiscated.  Their  jewels  and  effects 
were  taken,  and  set  up  to  a  pretended  auction  in  an 
obscure  place,  and  bought  at  such  a  price  as  the  gen- 
tlemen thought  proper  to  give.  No  account  has  ever 
been  transmitted  of  the  articles  or  produce  of  this  sale. 
What  money  was  o])tained  is  unknown,  or  what  terms 
were  stipulated  for  the  maintenance  of  these  despoiled 


476  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA   BILL. 

and  forlorn  creatures  :  for  by  some  particulars  it  ap- 
pears as  if  an  engagement  of  the  kind  was  made. 

Let  me  here  remark,  once  for  all,  that  though  the 
act  of  1773  requires  that  an  account  of  all  proceed- 
ings should  be  diligently  transmitted,  that  this,  like 
all  the  otlier  injunctions  of  the  law,  is  totally  despised, 
and  that  half  at  least  of  the  most  important  papers 
are  intentionally  withheld. 

I  Avish  you.  Sir,  to  advert  particularly,  in  this  trans- 
action, to  the  quality  and  the  numbers  of  the  persons 
spoiled,  and  the  instrument  by  whom  that  spoil  was 
made.  These  ancient  matrons,  called  the  Begums, 
or  Princesses,  were  of  the  first  birth  and  quality  in 
India :  the  one  mother,  the  other  wife,  of  the  late  Na- 
bob of  Oude,  Sujah  Dowlah,  a  prince  possessed  of  ex- 
tensive and  flourishing  dominions,  and  the  second 
man  in  the  Mogul  Empire.  This  prince  (suspicious, 
and  not  imjustly  suspicious,  of  his  son  and  successor) 
at  his  death  committed  his  treasures  and  his  family 
to  the  British  faith.  That  family  and  household  con- 
sisted of  ttvo  thousand  women,  to  which  were  added 
two  other  seraglios  of  near  kindred,  and  said  to  be  ex- 
tremely numerous,  and  (as  I  am  well  informed)  of 
about  fourscore  of  the  Nabob's  children,  with  all  the 
eunuchs,  the  ancient  servants,  and  a  multitude  of  the 
dependants  of  his  splendid  court.  These  were  all  to 
be  provided,  for  present  maintenance  and  future  es- 
tablishment, from  the  lands  assigned  as  dower,  and 
from  the  treasures  which  he  left  to  these  matrons,  in 
trust  for  the  whole  family. 

So  far  as  to  the  objects  of  the  spoil.  The  instrument 
chosen  by  Mr.  Hastings  to  despoil  the  relict  of  Sujah 
Dowlah  was  her  own  son,  the  reigning  Nabob  of  Oude. 
It  was  the  pious  hand  of  a  son  that  was  selected  to 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  477 

tear  from  his  mother  and  grandmother  the  provision 
of  their  age,  the  maintenance  of  his  brethren,  and  of 
all  the  ancient  household  of  his  father.  [^Eey-e  a 
laugh  from  some  young  members.']  The  langh  is  sea- 
sonable, and  the  occasion  decent  and  proper. 

By  the  last  advices,  something  of  the  sum  extort- 
ed remained  unpaid.  The  women,  in  despair,  refuse 
to  deliver  more,  imlcss  their  lands  are  restored,  and 
their  ministers  released  from  prison ;  but  Mr.  Hast- 
ings and  his  council,  steady  to  their  point,  and  con- 
sistent to  the  last  in  their  conduct,  write  to  the 
resident  to  stimulate  the  son  to  accomplish  the  filial 
acts  he  had  brought  so  near  to  their  perfection.  "  We 
desire,"  say  they  in  their  letter  to  the  resident, 
(written  so  late  as  March  last,)  "  that  you  will  in- 
form us  if  any,  and  wliat  means,  have  been  taken  for 
recovering  the  balance  due  from  the  Begum  [Prin- 
cess] at  Fyzabad ;  and  that,  if  necessary,  you  recom- 
mend it  to  the  vizier  to  enforce  the  most  effectual  means 
for  that  purpose." 

"What  their  effectual  means  of  enforcing  demands 
on  women  of  high  rank  and  condition  are  I  shall  show 
you,  Sir,  in  a  few  minutes,  when  I  represent  to  you 
another  of  these  plots  and  rebellions,  which  always  in 
India,  though  so  rarely  anywlicre  else,  are  the  off- 
spring of  an  easy  condition  and  hoarded  riches. 

Benares  is  the  capital  city  of  the  Indian  religion. 
It  is  regarded  as  holy  by  a  particular  and  distin- 
guished sanctity  ;  and  the  Gentoos  in  general  think 
themselves  as  much  obliged  to  visit  it  once  in  their 
lives  as  the  Mahometans  to  perform  their  pilgrimage 
to  Mecca.  By  this  means  that  city  grew  great  in 
commerce  and  opulence  ;  and  so  effectually  was  it 
secured  by  the  pious  vcjieration  of  that  people,  that 


478  SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX'S   EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

in  all  wars  and  in  all  violences  of  power  there  was 
so  sure  an  asylum  both  for  poverty  and  wealth,  (as  it 
were  under  a  divine  protection,)  that  the  wisest  laws 
and  best  assured  free  constitution  could  not  better 
provide  for  the  relief  of  the  one  or  the  safety  of  the 
other  ;  and  this  tranquillity  influenced  to  the  great- 
est degree  the  prosperity  of  all  the  country,  and  the 
territory  of  which  it  was  the  capital.  The  interest  of 
money  there  was  not  more  than  half  the  usual  rate  in 
which  it  stood  in  all  other  places.  The  reports  have 
fully  informed  you  of  the  means  and  of  the  terms  in 
which  this  city  and  the  territory  called  Ghazipoor,  of 
which  it  was  the  head,  came  under  the  sovereignty 
of  the  East  India  Company. 

If  ever  there  was  a  subordinate  dominion  pleas- 
antly circumstanced  to  the  superior  power,  it  was 
this.  A  large  rent  or  tribute,  to  the  amount  of  two 
hundred  and  sixty  thousand  pounds  a  year,  was  paid 
in  monthly  instalments  with  the  punctuality  of  a  div- 
idend at  the  Bank.  If  ever  there  was  a  prince  who 
could  not  have  an  interest  in  disturbances,  it  was  its 
sovereign,  the  Rajah  Chcit  Sing.  He  was  in  posses- 
sion of  the  capital  of  his  religion,  and  a  willing  rev- 
enue was  paid  by  the  devout  people  who  resorted  to 
him  from  all  parts.  His  sovereignty  and  his  inde- 
pendence, except  his  tribute,  was  secured  by  every 
tie.  His  territory  was  not  much  less  than  half  of 
Ireland,  and  displayed  in  all  parts  a  degree  of  culti- 
vation, ease,  and  plenty,  under  his  frugal  and  paternal 
management,  which  left  him  nothing  to  desire,  either 
for  honor  or  satisfaction. 

This  was  the  light  in  which  this  country  appeared 
to  almost  every  eye.  But  Mr.  Hastings  beheld  it 
askance.     Mr.  Hastings  tells  us  that  it  was  reported  of 


SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX'S   EAST  INDIA   BILL.         479 

this  Chcit  Sing,  that  his  father  left  him  a  million  ster- 
liuff,  and  that  he  made  annual  accessions  to  the  hoard. 
Nothing  could  be  so  obnoxious  to  indigent  power.  So 
much  wealth  could  not  be  innocent.  The  House  is 
fully  acquainted  with  the  unfounded  and  unjust  re- 
quisitions which  were  made  upon  this  prince.  The 
question  has  been  most  ably  and  conclusively  cleared 
up  in  one  of  the  reports  of  the  select  committee,  and 
in  an  answer  of  the  Court  of  Directors  to  an  extraor- 
dinary publication  against  them  by  their  servant,  Mr. 
Hastings.  But  I  mean  to  pass  by  these  exactions  as 
if  they  were  perfectly  just  and  regular  ;  and  having 
admitted  them,  I  take  what  I  shall  now  trouble  you 
with  only  as  it  serves  to  show  the  spirit  of  the  Com- 
pany's government,  the  mode  in  which  it  is  carried 
on,  and  the  maxims  on  wbicli  it  proceeds. 

Mr.  Hastings,  from  whom  I  take  the  doctrine,  en- 
deavors to  prove  that  Cheit  Sing  was  no  sovereign 
prince,  but  a  mere  zemindar,  or  common  subject, 
holding  land  by  rent.  If  this  be  granted  to  him,  it 
is  next  to  be  seen  under  what  terms  he  is  of  opinion 
such  a  landholder,  that  is  a  British  subject,  holds  his 
life  and  property  under  the  Company's  government. 
It  is  proper  to  understand  well  the  doctrines  of  the 
person  whose  administration  has  lately  received  such 
distinguished  approbation  from  the  Company.  His 
doctrine  is,  —  "  That  the  Company,  or  tho  person  dele- 
gated hy  it,  holds  an  absolute  authority  over  such  zem- 
indars ;  —  that  he  [such  a  subject]  owes  an  implicit 
and  unreserved  obedience  to  its  authority,  at  the  for- 
feiture even  of  his  life  and  property,  at  the  discretion 
of  those  who  held  or  fully  represented  the  sovereign 
authority  ;  —  and  that  these  rights  are  fully  delegated 
to  him,  Mr.  Hastings." 


480  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX's    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

Such  is  a  British  governor's  idea  of  the  condition 
of  a  great  zemindar  holding  under  a  British  author- 
ity ;  and  this  kind  of  authority  he  supposes  fully  del- 
egated to  him,  —  though  no  such  delegation  appears 
in  any  commission,  instruction,  or  act  of  Parliament. 
At  his  discretion  he  may  demand  of  the  substance  of 
any  zemindar,  over  and  above  his  rent  or  tribute,  even 
what  he  pleases,  with  a  sovereign  authority  ;  and  if  he 
does  not  yield  an  im2'>licit,  unreserved  obedience  to  all 
his  commands,  he  forfeits  his  lands,  his  life,  and  his 
property,  at  Mr.  Hastings's  discretion.  But,  extrava- 
gant, and  even  frantic,  as  these  positions  appear,  they 
are  less  so  than  what  I  shall  now  read  to  you  ;  for  he 
asserts,  that,  if  any  one  should  urge  an  exemption 
from  more  than  a  stated  payment,  or  should  consider 
the  deeds  which  passed  between  him  and  the  Board 
"  as  bearing  the  quality  and  force  of  a  treaty  between 
equal  states,"  he  says,  "  that  such  an  opinion  is  itself 
criminal  to  the  state  of  which  he  is  a  subject ;  and 
that  he  was  liimself  amenable  to  its  justice,  if  he  gave 
countenance  to  such  a  belief.''^  Here  is  a  new  species 
of  crime  invented,  that  of  countenancing  a  belief, — 
but  a  belief  of  what  ?  A  belief  of  that  which  the 
Court  of  Directors,  Hastings's  masters,  and  a  commit- 
tee of  this  House,  have  decided  as  this  prince's  indis- 
putable right. 

But  supposing  the  Eajah  of  Benares  to  be  a  mere 
subject,  and  that  subject  a  criminal  of  the  highest 
form ;  let  us  see  what  course  was  taken  by  an  up- 
right English  magistrate.  Did  he  cite  this  culprit  be- 
fore his  tribunal  ?  Did  he  make  a  charge  ?  Did  he 
produce  witnesses  ?  These  arc  not  forms ;  they  are 
parts  of  substantial  and  eternal  justice.  No,  not  a 
word  of  all  this.     Mr.  Hastings  concludes  him,  in  his 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  481 

own  mind,  to  be  guilty  :  ho  makes  this  conchision  en 
reports,  on  hearsays,  on  appearances,  on  rumors,  on 
conjectures,  on  presumptions ;  and  even  these  never 
once  hinted  to  the  party,  nor  publicly  to  any  human 
being,  till  the  whole  business  was  done. 

But  the  Governor  tells  you  his  motive  for  this 
extraordinary  proceeding,  so  contrary  to  every  mode 
of  justice  towards  either  a  prince  or  a  subject,  fairly 
and  without  disguise ;  and  he  puts  into  your  hands 
the  key  of  his  whole  conduct :  — "I  will  suppose,  for 
a  moment,  that  I  have  acted  with  unwarrantable 
rigor  towards  Cheit  Sing,  and  even  with  injustice.  — 
Let  my  motive  be  consulted.  I  left  Calcutta,  im- 
pressed with  a  belief  that  extraordinary  means  were 
necessary,  and  those  exerted  with  a  steady  hand,  to 
preserve  the  Company's  interests  from  sinking  under 
the  accumulated  iveight  which  oppressed  them.  I  saw 
a.  political  necessity  for  curbing  the  overgroivn  power 
of  a  great  member  of  their  dominion,  and  for  making 
it  contribute  to  the  relief  of  their  pressing  exigencies^ 
This  is  plain  speaking  ;  after  this,  it  is  no  wonder  that 
the  Rajah's  wealth  and  his  offence,  the  necessities 
of  the  judge  and  the  opulence  of  the  delinquent,  are 
never  separated,  througli  the  whole  of  Mr.  Hastings's 
apology.  "  The  justice  and  policy  of  exacting  a  large 
pecuniary  mtdct.'"  The  resolution  "  to  draw  from  his 
guilt  the  means  of  relief  to  the  Company's  distresses.'* 
His  determination  "  to  make  him  pay  largely  for  his 
pardon,  or  to  execute  a  severe  vengeance  for  past  de- 
linquency." That  "  as  his  wealth  was  great,  and  the 
Company's  exigencies  pressing,  he  thought  it  a  meas- 
ure of  justice  and  policy  to  exact  from  him  a  large 
pecuniary  mulct  for  their  relief.'''  —  "  The  sum  "  (says 
Mr.  Wilder,  bearing  evidence,  at  his  dcsbe,  to  his 

VOL.  II.  31 


482         SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL. 

intentions)  "  to  which  the  Governor  declared  his  res- 
olution to  extend  his  fine  was  forty  or  fifty  lacs,  that 
is,  four  or  five  hundred  thousand  pounds  ;  and  that,  if 
he  refused,  he  was  to  be  removed  from  his  zemindary 
entirely  ;  or  by  taking  possession  of  his  forts,  to  obtain, 
out  of  the  treasure  deposited  in  them,  the  above  sum  for 
the  Company." 

Crimes  so  convenient,  crimes  so  politic,  crimes  so 
necessary,  crimes  so  alleviating  of  distress,  can  never 
be  wanting  to  those  who  use  no  process,  and  who 
produce  no  proofs. 

But  there  is  another  serious  part  (what  is  not  so  ?) 
in  this  affair.  Let  us  suppose  that  the  power  for 
which  Mr.  Hastings  contends,  a  power  which  no  sov- 
ereign ever  did  or  ever  can  vest  in  any  of  his  sub- 
jects, namely,  his  own  sovereign  authority,  to  bo 
conveyed  by  the  act  of  Parliament  to  any  man  or 
body  of  men  whatsoever ;  it  certainly  was  never 
given  to  Mr.  Hastings.  The  powers  given  by  the 
act  of  1773  were  formal  and  official ;  they  were 
given,  not  to  the  Governor-General,  but  to  the  major 
vote  of  the  board,  as  a  board,  on  discussion  amongst 
themselves,  in  their  public  character  and  capacity ; 
and  their  acts  in  that  character  and  capacity  were  to 
be  ascertained  by  records  and  minutes  of  council. 
The  despotic  acts  exercised  by  Mr.  Hastings  were 
done  merely  in  his  private  character ;  and,  if  they 
had  been  moderate  and  just,  would  still  be  the  acts 
of  an  usurped  authority,  and  without  any  one  of 
the  legal  modes  of  proceeding  which  could  give  him 
competence  for  the  most  trivial  exertion  of  power. 
There  was  no  proposition  or  deliberation  whatsoever 
in  council,  no  minute  on  record,  by  circulation  or 
otherwise,  to  authorize  his  proceedings ;  no  delega- 


SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX'S   EAST  INDIA   BILL.         483 

tion  of  power  to  impose  a  fmo,  or  to  take  any  step  to 
deprive  the  Rajah  of  Benares  of  his  government,  his 
property,  or  his  liberty.  TIic  minutes  of  consulta- 
tion assign  to  his  journey  a  totally  different  object, 
duty,  and  destination.  Mr.  Wheler,  at  his  desire, 
tells  us  long  after,  that  he  had  a  confidential  conver- 
sation with  him  on  various  subjects,  of  which  this 
was  the  principal,  in  which  Mr.  Hastings  notified  to 
him  his  secret  intentions ;  "  and  that  he  bespoke  his 
support  of  the  measures  which  he  intended  to  pursue 
towards  him  (the  Rajah)."  This  confidential  dis- 
course, and  hespeahing  of  support,  could  give  him  no 
power,  in  opposition  to  an  express  act  of  Parliament, 
and  the  whole  tenor  of  the  orders  of  the  Court  of 
Directors. 

In  what  manner  the  powers  thus  usurped  were 
employed  is  known  to  the  whole  world.  All  the 
House  knows  that  the  design  on  the  Rajali  proved 
as  unfruitful  as  it  was  violent.  The  unhappy  prince 
was  expelled,  and  his  more  unhappy  country  was 
enslaved  and  ruined  ;  but  not  a  rupee  was  acquired. 
Instead  of  treasure  to  recruit  the  Company's  finan- 
ces, wasted  by  their  wanton  wars  and  corrupt  jobs, 
they  were  plunged  into  a  new  war,  which  shook 
their  power  in  India  to  its  foundation,  and,  to  use 
the  Governor's  own  happy  simile,  might  have  dis- 
solved it  like  a  magic  structure,  if  the  talisman  had 
been  broken. 

But  the  success  is  no  part  of  my  consideration, 
who  should  think  just  the  same  of  this  biisiness,  if  the 
spoil  of  one  rajah  had  been  fully  acquired,  and  faith- 
fully applied  to  the  destruction  of  twenty  other  rajahs. 
Not  only  the  arrest  of  the  Rajah  in  his  palace  was 
unnecessary  and  unwarrantable,  and  calculated  to  stir 


484         SPEECH   ON   MR.    FOX'S   EAST   INDIA   BILL. 

up  any  manly  blood  which  remained  in  his  subjects ; 
but  the  despotic  stylo  and  the  extreme  insolence  of 
language  and  demeanor,  used  to  a  person  of  great 
condition  among  the  politest  people  in  the  world,  was 
mtolcrable.  Nothing  aggravates  tyranny  so  much 
as  contumely.  Quicquid  superbia  in  contumeliis  was 
charged  Ijy  a  great  man  of  antiquity,  as  a  principal 
head  of  offence  against  the  Governor-General  of  that 
day.  Tlie  unhappy  people  were  still  more  insulted. 
A  relation,  but  an  eneimj  to  the  family,  a  notorious 
robber  and  villain,  called  Ussaun  Sing,  kept  as  a 
hawk  in  a  mew,  to  fly  upon  this  nation,  was  set  up 
to  govern  there,  instead  of  a  prince  honored  and 
beloved.  But  when  the  business  of  insult  was  accom- 
plished, the  revenue  was  too  serious  a  concern  to  be 
intrusted  to  such  hands.  Another  was  set  up  in  his 
place,  as  guardian  to  an  infant. 

But  here,  Sir,  mark  the  effect  of  all  these  extraor- 
dinary  means,  of  all  this  policy  and  justice.  The 
revenues,  which  had  been  hitherto  paid  with  such 
astonishing  punctuality,  fell  into  arrear.  The  new 
prince  guardian  was  deposed  without  ceremony, — 
and  with  as  little,  cast  into  prison.  The  government 
of  that  once  happy  country  has  been  in  the  utmost  con- 
fusion ever  since  such  good  order  was  taken  about  it. 
But,  to  complete  the  contumely  offered  to  this  undone 
people,  and  to  make  them  feel  their  servitude  in  all 
its  degradation  and  all  its  bitterness,  the  government 
of  their  sacred  city,  the  government  of  that  Benares 
which  had  been  so  respected  by  Persian  and  Tartar 
conquerors,  though  of  the  Mussulman  persuasion, 
that,  even  in  the  plenitude  of  their  pride,  power,  and 
bigotry,  no  magistrate  of  that  sect  entered  the  place, 
was  now  delivered  over  by  English  hands  to  a  Ma- 


SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX's   EAST  INDIA   BILL.         485 

hometan  ;  and  an  Ali  Ibrahim  Khan  was  introduced, 
under  the  Company's  authority,  with  power  of  life 
and  death,  into  the  sanctuary  of  the  Gentoo  religion. 
After  this,  the  taking  off  a  slight  payment,  cheerfully 
made  by  pilgrims  to  a  chief  of  their  own  rites,  was 
represented  as  a  mighty  benefit. 

It  remains  only  to  show,  through  the  conduct  in 
this  business,  the  spirit  of  the  Company's  govern- 
ment, and  the  respect  they  pay  towards  other  preju- 
dices, not  less  regarded  in  the  East  than  those  of  re- 
ligion :  I  mean  the  reverence  paid  to  the  female  sex 
in  general,  and  particularly  to  women  of  high  rank 
and  condition.  During  the  general  confusion  of  the 
country  of  Ghazipoor,  Panna,  the  mother  of  Chcit 
Sing,  was  lodged  with  her  train  in  a  castle  called 
Bidg(3  Gur,  in  which  were  likewise  deposited  a  large 
portion  of  the  treasures  of  her  son,  or  more  probably 
her  own.  To  whomsoever  they  belonged  was  indif- 
ferent :  for,  though  no  charge  of  rebellion  was  made 
on  this  woman,  (which  was  rather  singular,  as  it 
would  have  cost  nothing,)  they  were  resolved  to  se- 
cure her  with  her  fortune.  The  castle  was  besieged 
by  Major  Popham. 

There  was  no  great  reason  to  apprehend  that 
soldiers  ill  paid,  that  soldiers  who  thought  they  had 
been  defrauded  of  their  plunder  on  former  services 
of  the  same  kind,  would  not  have  been  sufficiently 
attentive  to  the  spoil  they  were  expressly  come  for ; 
but  the  gallantry  and  generosity  of  the  profession 
was  justly  suspected,  as  being  likely  to  set  bounds 
to  military  rapaciousncss.  The  Company's  first  civil 
magistrate  discovered  the  greatest  uneasiness  lest 
tiie  women  should  have  anytliing  preserved  to  them. 
Terms   tending  to  put  some   restraint   on   military 


486  SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA   BILL. 

violence  were  granted.  He  writes  a  letter  to  Mr. 
Popliam,  referring  to  some  letter  written  before  to 
the  same  effect,  which  I  do  not  remember  to  have 
seen  ;  but  it  shows  his  anxiety  on  this  subject.  Hear 
himself: — "I  think  every  demand  she  has  made  on 
you,  except  that  of  safety  and  respect  to  her  person, 
is  unreasonable.  If  the  reports  brought  to  mo  are 
true,  your  rejecting  her  offers,  or  any  negotiation, 
would  soon  obtain  you  the  fort  upon  yocir  own  terms. 
I  apprehend  she  will  attempt  to  defraud  the  captors 
of  a  considerable  part  of  their  booty,  by  being  suffered 
to  retire  ivithout  examination.  But  this  is  your  con- 
cern, not  mine.  I  should  be  very  sorry  that  your 
officers  and  soldiers  lost  any  part  of  the  reward  to 
which  they  arc  so  well  entitled ;  but  you  must  be  the 
best  judge  of  the  ^romsec?  indulgence  to  the  Ranny: 
what  you  have  engaged  for  I  will  certainly  ratify ; 
but  as  to  suffering  the  Ranny  to  hold  the  purgunna 
of  Hurlich,  or  any  other  zemindary,  without  being 
subject  to  the  authority  of  the  zemindar,  or  any  lands 
whatsoever,  or  indeed  making  any  condition  with  her 
for  2i.  provision,  I  will  never  consent.''^ 

Here  your  Governor  stimulates  a  rapacious  and 
licentious  soldiery  to  the  personal  search  of  women, 
lest  these  unhappy  creatures  should  avail  themselves 
of  the  protection  of  their  sex  to  secure  any  supply 
for  their  necessities  ;  and  he  positively  orders  that 
no  stipulation  should  be  made  for  any  provision  for 
them.  The  widow  and  mother  of  a  prince,  well  in- 
formed of  her  miserable  situation,  and  the  cause  of 
it,  a  woman  of  this  rank  became  a  suppliant  to  the 
domestic  servant  of  Mr.  Hastings,  (they  arc  his  own 
words  that  I  read,)  "  imploring  his  intercession  that 
she  may  be  relieved  from  the  hardships  and  dangers 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  487 

of  her  present  situation,  and  offering  to  snrrender  the 
fort,  and  the  treasure  and  valuable  effects  contained  in 
it,  provided  she  can  be  assured  of  safety  and  protection 
to  her  person  and  honor,  and  to  that  of  her  family  and 
attendants."  He  is  so  good  as  to  consent  to  this, 
"  provided  she  surrenders  everything  of  vahie,  with 
tlie  reserve  only  of  such  articles  as  you  shall  think 
necessary  to  her  condition,  or  as  you  yourself  shall  be 
disposed  to  indulge  her  with.  —  But  should  she  refuse 
to  execute  the  promise  she  has  made,  or  delay  it  be- 
yond the  term  of  twenty-four  hours,  it  is  my  positive 
injunction  that  you  immediately  put  a  stop  to  any 
further  intercourse  or  negotiation  with  her,  and  on 
no  pretext  renew  it.  If  she  disappoints  or  trifles  with 
me,  after  I  have  subjected  my  duan  to  the  disgrace 
of  returning  ineffectually,  and  of  course  myself  to 
discredit,  I  shall  consider  it  as  a  wanton  affront  and 
indignity  which  I  can  never  forgive  ;  nor  will  I  grant 
her  ayiy  conditions  whatever,  but  leave  her  exposed 
to  those  dangers  which  she  has  chosen  to  risk,  rather 
than  trust  to  the  clemency  and  generosity  of  our  gov- 
ernment. I  think  she  cannot  be  ignorant  of  these 
consequences,  and  will  not  venture  t6  incur  them  ; 
and  it  is  for  this  reason  I  place  a  dependence  on  her 
offers,  and  have  consented  to  send  my  duan  to  her." 
The  dreadful  secret  hinted  at  by  the  merciful  Gov- 
ernor in  the  latter  part  of  tbe  letter  is  well  under- 
stood in  India,  where  those  who  suffer  corporeal  in- 
dignities generally  expiate  the  offences  of  others  with 
their  own  blood.  However,  in  spite  of  all  these, 
the  temper  of  the  military  did,  some  way  or  other, 
operate.  They  came  to  terms  which  have  never  been 
transmitted.  It  appears  that  a  fifteenth  per  cent 
of  the  plunder  was  reserved  to  the  captives,  of  which 


488  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

the  unhappy  mother  of  the  Prince  of  Benares  was  to 
have  a  share.     This  ancient  matron,  born  to  better 

things  \^A  laugh  from  certain  yoiing  gentlemen'] 

I  see  no  cause  for  this  mirth.  A  good  author  of  antiq- 
uity reckons  among  the  calamities  of  his  time  "  nohi- 
lissimarum  foeininarum  ezilia  etfugas."  I  say,  Sir,  this 
ancient  lady  was  compelled  to  quit  her  house,  with 
three  hundred  helpless  women  and  a  multitude  of  chil- 
dren in  her  train.  But  the  lower  sort  hi  the  camp, 
it  seems,  could  not  bo  restrained.  They  did  not  for- 
get the  good  lessons  of  the  Governor-General.  Tliey 
were  unwilling  "  to  be  defrauded  of  a  considerable 
part  of  their  booty  by  suffering  them  to  pass  without 
examination."  —  They  examined  them.  Sir,  with  a 
vengeance ;  and  the  sacred  protection  of  that  awful 
character,  Mr.  Hastings's  maitre  d'hotel,  coidd  not 
secure  them  from  insult  and  plunder.  Here  is  Pop- 
ham's  narrative  of  the  affair;  — 

"  The  Ranny  came  out  of  the  fort,  with  her  family 
and  dependants,  the  tenth,  at  night,  owing  to  which 
such  attention  was  not  paid  to  her  as  I  wished  ;  and 
I  am  exceedingly  sorry  to  inform  you  that  the  licen- 
tiousness of  our  followers  tvas  heyotid  the  bounds  of  con- 
trol; for,  7iotwithstanding  all  I  could  do,  her  people 
were  plundered  on  the  road  of  most  of  the  things  ivhich 
they  brought  out  of  the  fort,  by  which  means  one  of  the 
articles  of  surrender  has  been  much  infringed.  The 
distress  I  have  felt  upon  this  occasion  cannot  be  ex- 
pressed, and  can  only  be  allayed  by  a  firm  perform- 
ance of  the  other  articles  of  tlie  treaty,  whicli  I  shall 
make  it  my  business  to  enforce.  —  The  suspicions 
which  the  officers  had  of  treachery,  and  the  delay 
made  to  our  getting  possession,  had  enraged  them,  as 
well  as  the  troops,  so  much,  that  the  treaty  was  at 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX's    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  489 

first  regarded  as  void ;  but  tins  determination  \7as 
soon  succeeded  by  pity  and  compassion  for  the  un- 
fortunate besieged." — After  this  comes,  in  his  due 
order,  Mr.  Hastings  ;  who  is  full  of  sorrow  and  indig- 
nation, &c.,  &c.,  <tc.,  according  to  the  best  and  most 
authentic  precedents  established  upon  such  occasions. 

The  women  being  thus  disposed  of,  that  is,  com- 
pletely despoiled,  and  pathetically  lamented,  Mr. 
Hastings  at  length  recollected  the  great  object  of  his 
enterprise,  which,  during  his  zeal  lest  the  officers  and 
soldiers  should  lose  any  part  of  their  reward,  he  seems 
to  have  forgot,  —  that  is  to  say,  "to  draw  from  the 
Rajah's  guilt  the  means  of  relief  to  the  Company's  dis- 
tresses." This  was  to  be  the  stronghold  of  his  delcnce. 
This  compassion  to  the  Company,  he  knew  by  experi- 
ence, would  sanctify  a  great  deal  of  rigor  towards  the 
natives.  But  the  military  had  distresses  of  their  own, 
which  they  considered  first.  Neither  Mr.  Hastings's 
authority,  nor  his  supplications,  could  prevail  on  them 
to  assign  a  shilling  to  the  claim  he  made  on  the  part 
of  the  Company.  They  divided  the  booty  amongst 
themselves.  Driven  from  his  claim,  he  was  reduced 
to  petition  for  the  spoil  as  a  loan.  But  the  soldiers 
were  too  wise  to  venture  as  a  loan  what  the  borrower 
claimed  as  a  right.  In  defiance  of  all  authority,  they 
shared  among  themselves  about  two  hundred  thou 
sand  pounds  sterling,  besides  what  had  been  taken 
from  tlic  women. 

In  all  this  there  is  nothing  wonderful.  We  may  rest 
assured,  that,  when  the  maxims  of  any  government 
establisli  among  its  resources  extraordinary  means, 
and  those  exerted  Avith  a  strong  hand,  tliat  strong 
hand  Avill  provide  those  extraordinary  means  for  it- 
self.   Whether  tlie  soldiers  had  reason  or  not,  (perliaps 


490  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX's    EAST   INDIA   BILL. 

much  might  be  said  for  them,)  certain  it  is,  the  mili- 
tary discipline  of  India  was  ruined  from  that  moment ; 
and  the  same  rage  for  plunder,  the  same  contempt  ol 
subordination,  which  blasted  all  the  hopes  of  extraor- 
dinary means  from  your  strong  hand  at  Benares,  have 
very  lately  lost  you  an  army  in  Mysore.  Tliis  is  visi- 
ble enough  from  the  accounts  in  the  last  gazette. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  country  and  city  of 
Benares,  now  brought  into  the  same  order,  will  very 
soon  exhibit,  if  it  docs  not  already  display,  the  same 
appearance  with  those  countries  and  cities  which  are 
under  better  subjection.  A  great  master,  Mr.  Hast- 
ings, has  himself  been  at  the  pains  of  drawing  a  pic- 
ture of  one  of  these  countries ;  I  mean  the  province 
and  city  of  Fm-ruckabad.  There  is  no  reason  to  ques- 
tion his  knowledge  of  the  facts  ;  and  his  authority  (on 
this  point  at  least)  is  above  all  exception,  as  well  for 
the  state  of  the  country  as  for  the  cause.  In  his  min- 
ute of  consultation,  Mr.  Hastings  describes  forcibly 
the  consequences  which  arise  from  the  degradation 
into  which  we  have  sunk  the  native  government. 
"  The  total  want  (says  lie)  of  all  order,  regularity,  or 
authority,  in  his  (the  Nabob  of  Furruckabad's)  gov- 
ernment, and  to  which,  among  other  obvious  causes, 
it  may  no  doubt  be  owing  that  the  country  of  Fur- 
ruckabad  is  become  almost  an  entire  waste,  without 
cultivation  or  inhabitants,  —  that  the  capital,  which  but 
a  very  short  time  ago  was  distinguished  as  one  of  the 
most  populous  and  opulent  commercial  cities  in  Hin- 
dostan,  at  present  exhibits  nothing  but  scenes  of  the 
most  zvretched  poverty/,  desolation,  and  misery,  —  and 
that  the  Nabob  hvnself,  though  in  the  possession  of  a 
tract  of  country  which,  with  only  common  care,  is 
notoriously  capable  of  yielding  an  annual  revenue  of 


SPEECH   ON  MR.  FOX'S   EAST   INDIA   BILL.         491 

between  thirty  and  forty  lacs,  (three  or  four  hundred 
thousand  pounds,)  with  no  military  establishment  to 
maintain,  scarcely  commands  the  means  of  a  hare  sub- 
sistence.^^ 

This  is  a  true  and  unexaggerated  picture,  not  only 
of  Furruckabad,  but  of  at  least  three  fourths  of  the 
coimtry  which  we  possess,  or  rather  lay  waste,  in  In- 
dia. Now,  Sir,  the  House  will  be  desirous  to  know 
for  what  purpose  this  picture  was  drawn.  It  was  for 
a  purpose,  I  will  not  say  laudable,  but  necessary:  that 
of  taking  the  unfortunate  prince  and  his  country  out 
of  the  hands  of  a  sequestrator  sent  tliither  by  the  Na- 
bob of  Oude,  the  mortal  enemy  of  the  prince  thus 
ruined,  and  to  protect  him  by  means  of  a  British 
reside.'it,  who  might  carry  his  complaints  to  the  supe- 
rior resident  at  Oude,  or  transmit  them  to  Calcutta. 
But  mark  how  the  reformer  persisted  in  his  reforma- 
tion. Tlie  effect  of  the  measure  was  better  than  was 
probably  expected.  The  prince  began  to  be  at  ease  ; 
the  country  began  to  recover  ;  and  the  revenue  began 
to  be  collected.  These  were  alarming  circumstances. 
Mr.  Hastings  not  only  recalled  the  resident,  but  he 
entered  into  a  formal  stipulation  with  the  Nabob  of 
Oude  never  to  send  an  English  subject  again  to  Fur- 
ruckabad ;  and  thus  the  country,  described  as  you 
have  heard  by  Mr.  Hastings,  is  given  up  forever  to 
the  very  persons  to  whom  he  had  attributed  its  ruin, 
—  that  is,  to  the  sezawals  or  sequestrators  of  the 
Nabob  of  Oude. 

Such  was  the  issue  of  the  first  attempt  to  relievo 
the  distresses  of  the  dependent  provinces.  I  shall 
close  Avhat  I  have  to  say  on  the  condition  of  the  north- 
ern dependencies  with  the  effect  of  the  last  of  these 
attempts.     You  will  recollect.  Sir,  the  account  I  have 


492  SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

not  long  ago  stated  to  you,  as  given  by  Mr.  Hastings, 
of  tlic  ruined  condition  of  tlic  destroyer  of  others,  the 
Nabob  of  Oiide,  and  of  tlie  recall,  in  consequence,  of 
Hannay,  Middleton,  and  Johnson.  When  the  first 
little  sudden  gust  of  passion  against  these  gentlemen 
was  spent,  the  sentiments  of  old  friendship  began  to 
revive.  Some  healing  conferences  were  held  between 
them  and  the  superior  government.  Mr.  Ilannay 
was  permitted  to  return  to  Oude ;  but  death  pre- 
vented the  further  advantages  intended  for  him,  and 
the  future  benefits  proposed  for  tlie  country  by  the 
provident  care  of  the  Council-General. 

.  One  of  these  gentlemen  Avas  accused  of  the  grossest 
peculations ;  two  of  them  by  Mr.  Hastings  himself, 
of  what  he  considered  as  very  gross  offences.  Tlie 
Court  of  Directors  were  informed,  by  the  Governor- 
General  and  Council,  that  a  severe  inquiry  would  be 
instituted  against  the  two  KurAivors ;  and  they  re- 
quested that  court  to  suspend  its  judgment,  and  to 
wait  the  event  of  their  proceedings.  A  mock  inquiry 
has  been  instituted,  by  which  the  parties  could  not 
be  said  to  be  cither  acquitted  or  condemned.  By 
means  of  the  bland  and  conciliatory  dispositions  of 
the  charter-governors,  and  proper  private  cx})lana- 
tions,  the  public  inquiry  has  in  effect  died  away  ;  the 
siipposed  peculators  and  destroyers  of  Oude  repose  in 
all  security  in  the  bosoms  of  their  accusers ;  whilst 
others  succeed  to  them  to  be  instructed  by  their  ex- 
ample. 

It  is  only  to  complete  the  view  I  proposed  of  the 
conduct  of  the  Company  with  regard  to  the  depend- 
ent provinces,  that  I  shall  say  any  thing  at  all  of  the 
Carnatic,  which  is  the  scene,  if  possible,  of  greater 
disorder  than  the  northern  provinces.      Perhaps  it 


SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOx's   EAST   INDIA   BILL.         493 

were  better  to  say  of  this  centre  and  metropolis  of 
abuse,  wlienec  all  the  rest  in  India  and  in  England  di- 
verge, from  whence  they  are  fed  and  methodized,  what 
was  said  of  Carthage,  —  "  De  Carthagine  satius  est  si- 
lere  qnam  parmn  diccrey  Tliis  country,  in  all  its  de- 
nominations, is  about  46,000  square  miles.  It  may  be 
affirmed  universally,  that  not  one  person  of  substance 
or  property,  landed,  commercial,  or  moneyed,  except- 
ing two  or  three  bankers,  who  are  necessary  deposits 
and  distributors  of  the  general  spoil,  is  left  in  all  that 
region.  In  that  country,  the  moisture,  the  bounty  of 
Heaven,  is  given  but  at  a  certain  season.  Before  the 
era  of  our  influence,  the  industry  of  man  carefully 
husbanded  that  gift  of  God.  The  Gentoos  preserved, 
with  a  provident  and  religious  care,  the  precious  de- 
posit of  the  periodical  rain  in  reservoirs,  many  of  them 
works  of  royal  grandeur  ;  and  from  these,  as  occasion 
demanded,  they  fructified  the  whole  country.  To 
maintain  these  reservoirs,  and  to  keep  up  an  annual 
advance  to  the  cultivators  for  seed  and  cattle,  formed 
a  principal  object  of  the  piety  and  policy  of  the  priests 
and  rulers  of  the  Gentoo  religion. 

Tliis  object  required  a  command  of  money  ;  and 
there  was  no  poUam,  or  cattle,  wliich  in  the  happy 
days  of  the  Carnatic  was  without  some  hoard  of  treas- 
ure, by  which  the  governors  were  enabled  to  combat 
with  the  irregularity  of  the  seasons,  and  to  resist  or 
to  buy  off  tlie  invasion  of  an  enemy.  In  all  the  cities 
were  multitudes  of  merchants  and  bankers,  for  all 
occasions  of  moneyed  assistance  ;  and  on  the  other 
hand,  tlie  native  princes  were  in  condition  to  obtain 
credit  from  tliem.  The  manufacturer  was  paid  by 
the  return  of  commodities,  or  by  imported  money, 
and  not,  as  at  present,  in  the  taxes  that  had  been 


494         SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

originally  exacted  from  his  industry.  In  aid  of  cas- 
ual distress,  the  country  was  full  of  choultries,  which 
were  inns  and  hospitals,  where  the  traveller  and  the 
poor  were  relieved.  All  ranks  of  people  had  their 
place  in  tlie  public  concern,  and  their  share  in  the 
common  stock  and  common  prosperity.  But  the  char- 
tered rights  of  men ^  and  the  right  which  it  was  thought 
proper  to  set  up  in  the  Nabob  of  Arcot,  introduced  a 
new  system.  It  was  their  policy  to  consider  hoards 
of  money  as  crimes,  —  to  regard  moderate  rents  as 
frauds  on  the  sovereign,  —  and  to  view,  in  the  lesser 
princes,  any  claim  of  exemption  from  more  than  set- 
tled tribute  as  an  act  of  rebellion.  Accordingly,  all 
the  castles  were,  one  after  the  other,  plundered  and 
destroyed ;  the  native  princes  were  expelled ;  the 
hospitals  fell  to  ruin  ;  the  reservoirs  of  water  went  to 
decay ;  the  merchants,  bankers,  and  manufacturers 
disappeared  ;  and  sterility,  indigence,  and  depopula- 
tion overspread  the  face  of  these  once  flourishing 
provinces. 

The  Company  was  very  early  sensible  of  these  mis- 
chiefs, and  of  their  true  cause.  They  gave  precise  or- 
ders, "  that  the  native  princes,  called  polygars,  should 
not  he  extirpated^  "  The  rebellion  "  (so  they  choose 
to  call  it)  "  of  the  polygars  may,  they  fear,  tvith  too 
much  justice,  be  attributed  to  the  maladministration 
of  tlie  Nabob's  collectors."  "  They  observe  with  con- 
cern, that  their  troops  have  been  put  to  disagreeable 
services."  They  might  have  used  a  stronger  expres- 
sion without  impropriety.  But  they  make  amends 
in  another  place.  Speaking  of  the  polygars,  the  Di- 
rectors say  that  "  it  was  repugnant  to  humanity  to 
force  them  to  such  dreadful  extremities  as  they  un- 
derwent ";  that  some  examples  of  severity  might  be 


SPEECH   ON  MR.  FOX'S   EAST   INDIA   BILL.         495 

ncccssaiy,  "  -wlien  tliey  fell  into  the  Nabob's  hands," 
a7id  not  by  the  destruction  of  the  country  ;  "  that  they 
fear  his  government  is  none  of  the  ^nildest,  and  that 
there  is  great  oppression  in  collecting  his  revenues." 
They  state,  that  the  wars  in  which  he  has  involved 
the  Carnatic  had  been  a  cause  of  its  distresses ; 
"  that  these  distresses  have  been  certainly  great,  but 
those  by  the  Nabob's  oppressions  they  believe  to  be 
greater  than  all^  Pray,  Sir,  attend  to  tlie  reason 
for  their  opinion  that  the  government  of  this  their 
instrument  is  more  calamitous  to  the  country  than 
the  ravages  of  war :  —  Because,  say  they,  his  oppres- 
sions are  "  ivithout  intermission  ;  the  others  are  tempo- 
rary ;  —  by  all  which  opp)rcssions  we  believe  the  Nabob 
has  o-reat  wealth  in  store."     From  this  store  neither 

O 

he  nor  they  could  derive  any  advantage  whatsoever, 
upon  the  hivasion  of  Hyder  Ali,  in  the  hour  of  their 
greatest  calamity  and  dismay. 

It  is  now  proper  to  compare  these  declarations  with 
the  Company's  conduct.  The  principal  reason  which 
they  assigned  against  the  extirpation  of  the  polygars 
was,  that  the  weavers  were  protected  in  their  fort- 
resses. They  might  have  added,  that  the  Company 
itself,  which  stung  them  to  death,  had  been  warmed 
in  the  bosom  of  these  unfortunate  prhices  :  for,  on  the 
taking  of  Madras  by  the  French,  it  was  in  thch-  hos- 
pitable pollaras  that  most  of  the  hihabitants  found 
refuge  and  protection.  But  notwithstanding  all  these 
orders,  reasons,  and  declarations,  they  at  length  gave 
an  indh-ect  sanction,  and  permitted  the  use  of  a  very 
direct  and  irresistible  force,  to  measures  which  they 
had  over  and  over  again  declared  to  be  false  policy, 
cruel,  inhuman,  and  oppressive.  Having,  however, 
forgot  all  attention  to  the  princes  and  the  people, 


496         SPEECH    ON   MR.    FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

tliey  remembered  that  they  had  some  sort  of  interest 
ill  the  trade  of  the  country ;  and  it  is  matter  of  curi- 
osity to  observe  the  protection  which  they  afforded  to 
this  their  natural  object. 

Full  of  anxious  cares  on  this  head,  they  direct, 
"  that,  in  reducing  the  polygars,  they  [their  servants] 
were  to  be  cautious  not  to  deprive  the  weavers  and 
manufacturers  of  the  protection  they  often  met  with 
in  the  strongholds  of  the  polygar  countries "  ;  and 
they  write  to  their  instrument,  the  Nabob  of  Arcot, 
concerning  these  poor  people  in  a  most  pathetic 
strain.  "  We  entreat  your  Excellency,"  (say  they,) 
"  in  particular,  to  make  the  manufacturers  the  object 
of  your  tenderest  care;  particularly  when  you  root  out 
the  polygars,  you  do  not  deprive  the  weavers  of  the 
protection  they  enjoyed  under  them.''''  When  they  root 
out  the  protectors  in  favor  of  the  oppressor,  they  show 
themselves  religiously  cautious  of  the  riglits  of  the 
protected.  When  they  extirpate  the  shepherd  and 
the  shepherd's  dog,  they  piously  recommend  the  help- 
less flock  to  the  mercy,  and  even  to  the  tenderest  care, 
of  the  wolf.  This  is  the  uniform  strain  of  their  pol- 
icy, —  strictly  forbidding,  and  at  the  same  time  stren- 
uously encouraging  and  enforcing,  every  measure  that 
can  ruin  and  desolate  the  country  committed  to  their 
charge.  After  giving  the  Company's  idea  of  tlie  gov- 
ernment of  this  their  instrument,  it  may  appear  sin- 
gular, but  it  is  perfectly  consistent  with  their  system, 
that,  besides  wasting  for  him,  at  two  different  times, 
the  most  exquisite  spot  upon  the  earth,  Tanjore,  and 
all  tlie  adjacent  countries,  they  have  even  voluntarily 
put  their  own  territory,  that  is,  a  large  and  fine  coun- 
try adjacent  to  Madras,  called  their  jagliire,  wholly 
out  of  their  protection,  —  and  have  continued  to  farm 


SPEECH    ON   MR,  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  497 

tlicir  subjects,  and  their  duties  towards  these  subjects, 
to  that  very  Nabob  whom  they  themselves  constantly 
represent  as  an  habitual  oppressor  and  a  relentless 
tyrant.  This  they  have  done  witliout  any  pretence 
of  ignorance  of  the  objects  of  oppression  for  which 
this  prince  has  thought  fit  to  become  their  renter :  for 
he  has  again  and  again  told  them  tliat  it  is  for  the 
eolc  purpose  of  exercising  authority  he  holds  the  jag- 
hirc  lands ;  and  he  affirms  (and  I  believe  with  truth) 
that  he  pays  more  for  that  territory  than  the  revenues 
yield.  This  deficiency  he  miist  make  up  from  his 
other  territories  ;  and  thus,  in  order  to  furnish  the 
means  of  oppressing  one  part  of  the  Carnatic,  he  is 
led  to  oppress  all  the  rest. 

The  House  perceives  that  the  livery  of  the  Com- 
pany's government  is  uniform.  I  have  described  the 
condition  of  the  countries  indirectly,  but  most  sub- 
stantially, under  the  Company's  authority.  And  now 
I  ask,  whether,  with  this  map  of  misgovernment  be- 
fore me,  I  can  suppose  myself  bound  by  my  vote  to 
continue,  upon  any  principles  of  pretended  public 
faith,  the  management  of  these  countries  in  those 
hands.  If  I  kept  such  a  faith  (which  in  reality  is 
no  better  than  a  fides  latronuiii)  with  what  is  called 
the  Company,  I  miist  break  the  faith,  the  covenant, 
the  solemn,  original,  indispensable  oath,  in  which  I 
am  bound,  by  tlic  eternal  frame  and  constitution  of 
things,  to  tlie  whole  human  race. 

As  1  have  dwelt  so  long  on  these  who  are  indirectly 
under  the  Company's  administration,  I  will  endeavor 
to  be  a  little  shorter  upon  the  countries  immediately 
under  this  charter-govcnnnent.  These  are  the  Ben- 
gal ])r()vinces.  The  condition  of  these  provinces  is 
pretty  fully  detailed  in  the  Sixth  and  Ninth  Reports, 

VOL.  II.  32 


498  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL. 

and  in  their  Appendixes.  I  will  select  only  such  prin- 
ciples and  instances  as  are  broad  and  general.  To 
your  own  thoughts  I  shall  leave  it  to  furnish  the  de- 
tail of  oppressions  involved  in  them.  I  shall  state 
to  you,  as  shortly  as  I  am  able,  the  conduct  of  the 
Company :  —  1st,  towards  the  landed  interests ;  —  next, 
the  commercial  interests  ;  —  ordly,  the  native  govern- 
ment; —  and  lastly,  to  their  own  government. 

Bengal,  and  the  provinces  that  are  united  to  it,  are 
larger  than  the  kingdom  of  France,  and  once  con- 
tained, as  France  does  contain,  a  great  and  indepen- 
dent landed  interest,  composed  of  princes,  of  great 
lords,  of  a  numerous  nobility  and  gentry,  of  free- 
holders, of  lower  tenants,  of  religious  communities, 
and  public  foundations.     So  early  as  1769,  the  Com- 
pany's servants  perceived  the  decay  into  which  these 
provinces  had  fallen  under  English  administration, 
and  they  made  a  strong   representation  upon  this 
decay,  and  what  they  apprehended  to  be  the  causes 
of  it.     Soon  after  this  representation,  Mr.  Hastings 
became  President  of  Bengal.     Instead  of  administer- 
ing a  remedy  to  this  melancholy  disorder,  upon  the 
heels  of  a  dreadful  famine,  in  the  year  1772,  the  suc- 
cor which  the  new  President  and  the  Council  lent  to 
this  afflicted  nation  was  —  shall  I  be  believed  in  relat- 
ing it  ?  —  the  landed  interest  of  a  whole  kingdom,  of 
a  kingdom  to  be  compared  to  France,  was  set  up  to 
public  auction  !     They  set  up  (Mr.  Hastings  set  up) 
the  whole  nobility,  gentry,  and  freeholders  to  the 
highest  bidder.     No  preference  was  given  to  the  an- 
cient proprietors.     They  must  bid  against  every  usu- 
rer, every  temporary  adventurer,  every  jobber  and 
schemer,  every  servant  of  every  European,  —  or  they 
were  obliged  to  content  themselves,  in  lieu  of  their 


SPEECH    OX    MR.  FOX'S   EAST   INDIA   BILL.  499 

extensive  domains,  with  their  house,  and  such  a  pen- 
sion as  the  state  auctioneers  thought  fit  to  assign. 
In  this  general  calamity,  several  of  the  first  nobility 
thouglit  (and  in  all  appearance  justly)  that  they  had 
better  submit  to  the  necessity  of  this  pension,  than 
continue,  under  the  name  of  zemindars,  the  objects 
and  instruments  of  a  system  by  which  they  ruined 
their  tenants  and  were  ruined  themselves.  Another 
reform  has  since  come  upon  the  back  of  the  first ; 
and  a  pension  having  been  assigned  to  these  unhap- 
py persons,  in  lieu  of  their  hereditary  lands,  a  new 
scheme  of  economy  has  taken  place,  and  deprived 
them  of  that  pension. 

The  menial  servants  of  Englishmen,  persons  (to 
use  the  cmpliatical  phrase  of  a  ruined  and  patient 
Eastern  chief)  "  ivJiose  fathers  they  tcould  not  have 
set  with  the  dogs  of  their  flock''''  entered  into  their 
patrimonial  lands.  Mr.  Hastings's  banian  was,  af- 
ter this  auction,  found  possessed  of  territories  yield- 
ing a  rent  of  one  hundred  and  forty  thousand  pounds 
a  year. 

Such  an  universal  proscription,  upon  any  pretence, 
has  few  examples.  Such  a  proscription,  without  even 
a  pretence  of  delinquency,  has  none.  It  stands  by  it- 
self. It  stands  as  a  monument  to  astonish  the  imagi- 
nation, to  confound  the  reason  of  mankind.  I  confess 
to  yoii,  when  I  first  came  to  know  this  business  in  its 
true  nature  and  extent,  my  surprise  did  a  little  sus- 
pend my  indignation.  I  was  in  a  manner  stupefied 
by  the  desperate  boldness  of  a  few  obscure  young 
men,  who,  having  ol)taincd,by  ways  Avliich  they  could 
not  comprehend,  a  power  of  which  they  saw  neither 
the  purposes  nor  the  limits,  tossed  about,  subverted, 
and  tore  to  pieces,  as  if  it  were  in  the  gambols  of  a 


600         SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA   BILL. 

boyish  uuluckincss  and  malice,  tlio  most  established 
rights,  and  the  most  ancient  and  most  revered  insti- 
tutions, of  ages  and  nations.  Sir,  I  will  not  now 
trouble  you  with  any  detail  with  regard  to  what  they 
have  since  done  with  these  same  lands  and  landhold- 
ers, only  to  inform  you  that  nothing  has  been  suf- 
fered to  settle  for  two  seasons  together  upon  any 
basis,  and  that  the  levity  and  inconstancy  of  the?e 
mock  legislators  were  not  the  least  afflicting  parts  of 
the  oppressions  suffered  under  their  usurpation  ;  nor 
will  anything  give  stability  to  tlie  property  of  the 
natives,  but  an  administration  in  England  at  once 
protecting  and  stable.  The  country  sustains,  almost 
every  year,  the  miseries  of  a  revolution.  At  present, 
all  is  uncertainty,  misery,  and  confusion.  There  is 
to  be  found  through  these  vast  regions  no  longer  one 
landed  man  who  is  a  resource  for  voluntary  aid  or 
an  object  for  particular  rapine.  Some  of  them  were 
not  long  since  great  princes ;  they  possessed  treas- 
ures, they  levied  armies.  There  was  a  zemindar  in 
Bengal,  ( I  forget  his  name,)  that,  on  the  threat  of  an 
invasion,  supplied  the  subah  of  these  provinces  with 
the  loan  of  a  million  sterling.  The  family  at  this 
day  wants  credit  for  a  breakfast  at  the  bazaar. 

I  shall  now  say  a  word  or  two  on  the  Company's 
care  of  the  commercial  interest  of  those  kingdoms. 
As  it  appears  in  the  Reports  that  persons  in  the  high- 
est stations  in  Bengal  have  adopted,  as  a  fixed  plan 
of  policy,  the  destruction  of  all  intermediate  dealers 
between  the  Company  and  the  manufacturer,  native 
merchants  have  disappeared  of  course.  The  spoil  of 
the  revenues  is  the  sole  capital  which  purcliases  the 
produce  and  manufactures,  and  through  three  or 
four  foreign  companies  transmits  the  official  gains  of 


SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX's    EAST   INDIA   BILL.         501 

indmcluals  to  Europe.  No  otlior  commerco  has  an 
existence  in  Bengal.  The  transport  of  its  phiuder  is 
the  only  traffic  of  the  country.  I  wish  to  refer  you 
to  the  Appendix  to  the  Ninth  Report  for  a  full  account 
of  the  manner  in  which  the  Company  have  protected 
the  commercial  interests  of  their  dominions  in  the 
East. 

As  to  the  native  government  and  the  administra- 
tion of  justice,  it  subsisted  in  a  poor,  tottering  manner 
for  some  years.  In  the  year  1781  a  total  revolution 
took  place  in  that  establishment.  In  one  of  the  usual 
freaks  of  legislation  of  the  Council  of  Bengal,  the 
whole  criminal  jurisdiction  of  these  courts,  called  the 
Phoujdary  Judicature,  exercised  till  then  by  the  prin 
cipal  Mussulmen,  was  in  one  day,  without  notice, 
without  consultation  with  the  magistrates  or  the  peo- 
ple there,  and  without  communication  with  the  Di- 
rectors or  Ministers  here,  totally  subverted.  A  new 
institution  took  place,  by  which  this  jurisdiction  was 
divided  between  certain  English  servants  of  the  Com- 
pany and  the  Gentoo  zemindars  of  the  country,  the 
latter  of  whom  never  petitioned  for  it,  nor,  for  aught 
that  appears,  ever  desired  this  boon.  But  its  natural 
use  was  made  of  it :  it  was  made  a  pretence  for  new 
extortions  of  money. 

The  natives  had,  however,  one  consolation  in  the 
ruin  of  their  judicature :  they  soon  saw  tliat  it  fared 
no  better  witli  the  English  government  itself.  That, 
too,  after  destroying  every  other,  came  to  its  period. 
Til  is  revolution  may  well  be  rated  for  a  most  daring 
act,  even  among  the  extraordinary  things  that  have 
been  doing  in  Bengal  since  our  unhappy  acquisition 
of  tlic  means  of  so  much  miscliief. 

An  establishment  of  English  government  for  civil 


502  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

justice,  and  for  the  collection  of  revenue,  was  planned 
and  executed  by  the  President  and  Council  of  Bengal, 
subject  to  the  pleasure  of  the  Directors,  in  the  year 
1772.  According  to  this  plan,  the  country  was  di- 
vided into  six  districts,  or  provinces.  Li  each  of 
these  was  established  a  provincial  council,  v/hich 
administered  the  revenue ;  and  of  that  council,  one 
member,  by  monthly  rotation,  presided  in  the  courts 
of  civil  resort,  with  an  appeal  to  the  council  of  the 
province,  and  thence  to  Calcutta.  In  this  system 
(whether  in  other  respects  good  or  evil)  there  were 
some  capital  advantages.  There  was,  in  the  very 
number  of  persons  in  each  provincial  council,  au- 
thority, communication,  mutual  check,  and  control. 
They  were  obliged,  on  their  minutes  of  consultation, 
to  enter  their  reasons  and  dissents  ;  so  that  a  man  of 
diligence,  of  research,  and  tolerable  sagacity,  sitting 
in  London,  might,  from  these  materials,  be  enabled 
to  form  some  judgment  of  the  spirit  of  what  was 
going  on  on  the  furthest  banks  of  the  Ganges  and 
Burrampooter. 

The  Court  of  Directors  so  far  ratified  this  establish- 
ment, (which  was  consonant  enough  to  their  general 
plan  of  government,)  that  they  gave  precise  orders 
that  no  alteration  should  be  made  in  it  without  their 
consent.  So  far  from  being  apprised  of  any  design 
against  this  constitution,  they  had  reason  to  conceive 
that  on  trial  it  had  been  more  and  more  approved  by 
their  Council-General,  at  least  by  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral, who  had  planned  it.  At  the  time  of  the  rev- 
olution, the  Council-General  was  nominally  in  two 
persons,  virtually  in  one.  At  that  time  measures  of 
an  arduous  and  critical  nature  ought  to  have  beeu 
forborne,  even  if,  to  the  fullest  council,  this  specific 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX's    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  503 

measure  had  not  been  proliibitcd  by  the  superior 
authority.  It  was  in  this  very  situation  that  one 
man  had  the  hardiness  to  conceive  and  the  temerity 
to  execute  a  total  revolution  in  the  form  and  the 
persons  composing  the  government  of  a  great  king- 
dom. AVithout  any  previous  step,  at  one  stroke,  the 
whole  constitution  of  Bengal,  civil  and  criminal,  was 
swept  aAvay.  The  counsellors  were  recalled  from 
their  provinces  ;  upwards  of  fifty  of  the  principal 
officers  of  government  were  turned  out  of  employ, 
and  rendered  dependent  on  Mr.  Hastings  for  their 
immediate  subsistence,  and  for  all  hope  of  future 
provision.  The  chief  of  each  council,  and  one  Eu- 
ropean collector  of  revenue,  was  left  in  each  prov- 
ince. 

But  here.  Sir,  you  may  imagine  a  new  govern- 
ment, of  some  permanent  description,  was  established 
in  the  place  of  that  which  had  been  thus  suddenly 
overturned.  No  sucli  thing.  Lest  these  chiefs,  with- 
out councils,  should  be  conceived  to  form  the  ground- 
plan  of  some  future  government,  it  was  publicly 
declared  that  their  continuance  was  only  temporary 
and  permissive.  The  whole  subordinate  British  ad- 
ministration of  revenue  was  then  vested  in  a  com- 
mittee in  Calcutta,  all  creatures  of  the  Governor- 
General  ;  and  the  provincial  management,  under  the 
permissive  chief,  was  delivered  over  to  native  officers. 

But  tliat  the  revolution  and  the  purposes  of  the 
revolution  might  be  complete,  to  this  committee  were 
delegated,  not  only  the  functions  of  all  the  inferior, 
but,  wliat  will  sui-prise  the  House,  those  of  tlie  su- 
preme administration  of  revenue  also.  Hitherto  the 
Governor-General  and  Council  had,  in  their  revenue 
department,  administered  the  finances  of  those  king- 


504  SPEECH    ON    ME.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

doms.  By  the  hew  scheme  they  are  delegated  to  this 
committee,  who  are  only  to  report  their  proceedings 
for  approbation. 

The  key  to  the  whole  transaction  is  given  in  one  of 
the  instructions  to  the  committee,  —  "that  it  is  not 
necessary  that  they  should  enter  dissents."  By  this 
means  the  ancient  plan  of  tlie  Company's  administra- 
tion was  destroyed  ;  but  the  plan  of  concealment  was 
perfected.  To  that  moment  the  accounts  of  the  reve- 
nues were  tolerably  clear,  —  or  at  least  moans  were 
furnished  for  inquiries,  by  which  they  might  be  ren- 
dered satisfactory.  In  the  obscure  and  silent  gulf  of 
this  committee  everything  is  now  buried.  The  thick- 
est shades  of  night  surround  all  their  transactions. 
No  effectual  means  of  detecting  fraud,  mismanage- 
ment, or  misrepresentation  exist.  The  Directors, 
who  have  dared  to  talk  with  such  confidence  on  their 
revenues,  know  nothing  about  them.  What  Tised  to 
fill  volumes  is  now  comprised  under  a  few  dry  heads 
on  a  sheet  of  paper.  The  natives,  a  people  habitually 
made  to  concealment,  are  the  chief  managers  of  the 
revenue  throughout  the  provinces.  I  mean  by  na- 
tives such  wretches  as  your  rulers  select  out  of  them 
as  most  fitted  for  their  purposes.  As  a  proper  key- 
stone to  bind  the  arch,  a  native,  one  Gunga  Govind 
Sing,  a  man  turned  out  of  his  employment  by  Sir 
John  Clavering  for  malversation  in  office,  is  made 
the  corresponding  secretary,  and,  indeed,  the  great 
moving  principle  of  their  new  board. 

As  the  whole  revenue  and  civil  administration  was 
thus  subverted,  and  a  clandestine  government  sub- 
stituted in  the  place  of  it,  the  judicial  institution 
underwent  a  like  revolution.  In  1772  there  had 
been  six  courts,  formed   out  of  tlie   six   provincial 


SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  50") 

councils.  Eighteen  new  ones  are  appointed  in  their 
place,  with  each  a  judge,  taken  from  the  junior  ser- 
vants of  the  Company.  To  maintain  these  eighteen 
courts,  a  tax  is  levied  on  the  sums  in  litigation,  of 
two  and  one  half  per  cent  on  the  great,  and  of  five 
per  cent  on  the  less.  This  money  is  all  drawn  from 
the  provinces  to  Calcutta.  The  chief  justice  (the 
same  who  stays  in  defiance  of  a  vote  of  tliis  House,  ' 
and  of  his  Majesty's  recall)  is  appointed  at  once  the 
treasurer  and  disposer  of  these  taxes,  levied  without 
any  sort  of  authority  from  the  Company,  from  the 
Crown,  or  from  Parliament. 

In  effect.  Sir,  every  legal,  regular  authority,  in 
matters  of  revenue,  of  political  administration,  of 
criminal  law,  of  civil  law,  in  many  of  the  most  essen- 
tial parts  of  military  discipline,  is  laid  level  with  the 
ground  ;  and  an  oppressive,  irregular,  capricious,  un- 
steady, rapacious,  and  peculating  despotism,  with  a 
direct  disavowal  of  obedience  to  any  authority  at 
home,  and  without  any  fixed  maxim,  principle,  or 
rule  of  proceeding  to  guide  them  in  India,  is  at  pres- 
ent tlic  state  of  your  charter-government  over  great 
kingdoms. 

As  the  Company  has  made  this  use  of  their  trust,  I 
should  ill  discharge  mine,  if  I  refused  to  give  my  most 
cheerful  vote  for  the  redress  of  these  abuses,  by  put- 
ting the  affairs  of  so  large  and  valuable  a  part  of  the 
interests  of  this  nation  and  of  mankind  into  some 
steady  hands,  possessing  the  confidence  and  assured 
of  the  support  of  this  House,  until  they  can  be  restored 
to  regularity,  order,  and  consistency. 

I  have  touched  the  heads  of  some  of  the  grievances 
of  the  people  and  the  abuses  of  government.  I>ut  I 
hope  and  trust  you  will  give  mc  credit,  when  I  faith- 


606  SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX's    EAST    INDIA    BILL. 

fully  assure  you  that  I  hare  not  mentioned  one 
fourth  part  of  what  has  come  to  my  knowledge  m 
your  committee ;  and  further,  I  have  full  reason  to 
believe  that  not  one  fourth  part  of  the  abuses  are 
come  to  my  knowledge,  by  that  or  by  any  other 
means.  Pray  consider  Avhat  I  have  said  only  as  an 
index  to  direct  you  in  your  inquiries. 

If  this,  then,  Sir,  has  been  the  use  made  of  the  tru^t 
of  political  powers,  internal  and  external,  given  by 
you  in  the  charter,  the  next  tiling  to  be  seen  is  the 
conduct  of  the  Company  with  regard  to  the  commer- 
cial trust.  And  here  I  will  make  a  fair  offer :  —  If  it 
can  be  proved  that  they  have  acted  wisely,  prudently, 
and  frugally,  as  merchants,  I  shall  pass  by  the  whole 
mass  of  their  enormities  as  statesmen.  Tliat  they 
have  not  done  this  their  present  condition  is  proof 
sufficient.  Their  distresses  are  said  to  be  owing  to 
their  wars.  This  is  not  wholly  true.  But  if  it  were, 
is  not  that  readiness  to  engage  in  wars,  which  distin- 
guishes them,  and  for  which  the  Committee  of  Secrecy 
has  so  branded  their  politics,  founded  on  the  falsest 
principles  of  mercantile  speculation  ? 

The  principle  of  buying  cheap  and  selling  dear  is 
the  first,  the  great  foundation  of  mercantile  dealing. 
Have  they  ever  attended  to  this  principle  ?  Nay,  for 
years  have  they  not  actually  authorized  in  their  ser- 
vants a  total  indifference  as  to  the  prices  they  were 
to  pay  ? 

A  great  deal  of  strictness  in  driving  bargains  for 
whatever  we  contract  is  another  of  the  principles  of 
mercantile  policy.  Try  the  Company  by  that  test. 
Look  at  the  contracts  that  are  made  for  them.  Is 
the  Company  so  much  as  a  good  commissary  to  their 
own  armies  ?     I  engage  to  select  for  you,  out  of  the 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  607 

innumerable  mass  of  their  dealings,  all  conducted 
very  nearly  alike,  one  contract  only  the  excessive 
profits  on  which  during  a  short  term  would  pay  the 
whole  of  their  year's  dividend.  I  shall  undertake 
to  show  that  upon  two  others  the  inordinate  profits 
given,  with  the  losses  incurred  in  order  to  secure 
those  profits,  would  pay  a  year's  dividend  more. 

It  is  a  third  property  of  trading-men  to  see  that 
their  clerks  do  not  divert  the  dealings  of  the  master 
to  their  own  benefit.  It  was  the  other  day  only, 
when  their  Governor  and  Council  taxed  the  Com- 
pany's investment  with  a  sum  of  fifty  thousand 
pounds,  as  an  inducement  to  pcrsiiadc  only  seven 
members  of  their  Board  of  Trade  to  give  their  lionor 
that  they  would  abstain  from  such  profits  upon  that 
investment,  as  they  must  have  violated  their  oaths,  if 
they  had  made  at  all. 

It  is  a  fourth  quality  of  a  merchant  to  be  exact  in 
his  accounts.  What  will  be  thought,  when  you  liave 
fully  before  you  the  mode  of  accounting  made  use  of 
in  the  Treasury  of  Bengal  ?  I  hope  you  will  have  it 
soon.  With  regard  to  one  of  their  agencies,  when  it 
came  to  tlie  material  part,  the  prime  cost  of  tlie  goods 
on  which  a  commission  of  fifteen  per  cent  was  al- 
lowed, to  the  astonishment  of  the  factory  to  wliom  the 
commodities  were  sent,  the  Accountant-General  re- 
ports that  he  did  not  think  himself  authorized  to  call 
for  vouchers  relative  to  this  and  other  particulars, — 
because  the  agent  was  upon  his  honor  witli  regard  to 
them.  A  new  principle  of  account  upon  honor  seems 
to  be  regularly  established  in  their  dealings  and  their 
treasury,  which  in  reality  amounts  to  an  entire  anni- 
hilation of  tlie  principle  of  all  accounts. 

It  is  a  fiftli  property  of  a  merchant,  who  does  not 


508  SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA   BILL. 

meditate  a  fraudulent  bankruptcy,  to  calculate  his 
probable  profits. upon  the  money  he  takes  up  to  vest 
in  business.  Did  the  Company,  when  they  bought 
goods  on  bonds  bearing  eight  per  cent  interest,  at 
ten  and  even  twenty  per  cent  discount,  even  ask 
themselves  a  question  concerning  the  possibility  of 
advantage  from  dealing  on  these  terms  ? 

The  last  quality  of  a  merchant  I  shall  advert  to  is 
the  taking  care  to  be  properly  prepared,  in  cash  or 
goods  in  the  ordinary  course  of  sale,  for  the  bills 
which  are  drawn  on  them.  Now  I  ask,  whether  they 
have  ever  calculated  the  clear  produce  of  any  given 
sales,  to  make  them  tally  with  the  four  million  of 
bills  which  are  come  and  coming  upon  them,  so  as 
at  the  proper  periods  to  enable  the  one  to  liquidate 
the  other.  No,  they  have  not.  They  are  now  obliged 
to  borrow  money  of  their  own  servants  to  purchase 
their  investment,  Tlio  servants  stipulate  five  per 
cent  on  the  capital  they  advance,  if  their  bills  should 
not  be  paid  at  the  time  when  they  become  due ;  and 
the  value  of  the  rupee  on  which  tlicy  charge  this  in- 
terest is  taken  at  two  shillings  and  a  penny.  Has  the 
Company  ever  troubled  themselves  to  inquire  whether 
their  sales  can  bear  the  payment  of  that  interest,  and 
at  that  rate  of  exchange  ?  Have  they  once  considered 
the  dilemma  in  which  they  arc  placed,  —  the  ruin  of 
their  credit  in  the  East  Indies,  if  they  refuse  the  bills, 
—  the  ruin  of  their  credit  and  existence  in  England, 
if  they  accept  them  ? 

Indeed,  no  trace  of  equitable  government  is  found 
in  their  politics,  not  one  trace  of  commercial  principle 
in  their  mercantile  dealing :  and  hence  is  the  deep- 
est and  maturest  wisdom  of  Parliament  demand- 
ed, and  the  best  resources  of  this  kingdom  must  bo 


SPEECH   ON  MB.  FOX'S   EAST  INDIA   BILL.         509 

strained,  to  restore  them,  —  that  is,  to  restore  the 
countries  destroyed  by  the  misconduct  of  the  Com- 
pany, and  to  restore  tlie  Company  itself,  ruined  by 
the  consequences  of  their  plans  for  destroying  what 
they  were  bound  to  preserve. 

1  required,  if  you  remember,  at  my  outset,  a  proof 
that  these  abuses  were  habitual.  But  surely  this  is 
not  necessary  for  me  to  consider  as  a  separate  head  ; 
because  I  trust  I  have  made  it  evident  beyond  a  doubt, 
in  considering  the  abuses  themselves,  that  they  are 
regular,  permanent,  and  systematical. 

I  am  naw  come  to  my  last  condition,  without 
which,  for  one,  I  will  never  readily  lend  my  hand  to 
the  destruction  of  any  established  government,  which 
is,  —  that,  in  its  present  state,  the  government  of  the 
East  India  Company  is  absolutely  incorrigible. 

Of  this  great  truth  I  think  there  can  be  little  doubt, 
after  all  that  has  appeared  in  this  House.  It  is  so 
very  clear,  that  I  must  consider  the  leaving  any 
power  in  their  hands,  and  the  determined  resolution 
to  continue  and  countenance  every  mode  and  every 
degree  of  peculation,  oppression,  and  tyranny,  to  be 
one  and  the  same  thing.  I  look  upon  that  body  in- 
corrigible, from  the  fnllcst  consideration  both  of  their 
uniform  conduct  and  their  present  real  and  virtual 
constitution. 

If  they  had  not  constantly  been  apprised  of  all  the 
enormities  committed  in  India  under  their  authority, 
if  this  state  of  tlungs  had  been  as  much  a  discovery  to 
them  as  it  Avas  to  many  of  us,  we  might  flatter  our- 
selves t'-at  the  detection  of  the  abuses  would  lead 
to  their  reformation.  I  will  go  further.  If  the  Court 
of  Directors  had  not  uniformly  condemned  every 
act  which  this  House  or  any  of  its  committees  had 


510         SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX's   EAST  INDIA   BILL. 

condemned,  if  the  language  in  wliicli  tliey  expressed 
their  disapprobation  against  enormities  and  their  au- 
thors had  not  been  much  more  vehement  and  indig- 
nant than  any  ever  used  in  this  House,  I  should 
entertain  some  hopes.  If  they  had  not,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  uniformly  commended  all  their  servants  who 
had  done  their  duty  and  obeyed  their  orders  as  they 
had  heavily  censured  those  who  rebelled,  I  might 
say,  These  people  have  been  in  an  error,  and  when 
they  arc  sensible  of  it  they  will  mend.  But  when  I 
reflect  on  the  uniformity  of  their  support  to  the  ob- 
jects of  their  uniform  censure,  and  the  state  of  insig- 
nificance and  disgrace  to  which  all  of  those  have  been 
reduced  whom  they  approved,  and  that  even  utter 
ruin  and  premature  death  have  been  among  the  fruits 
of  their  favor,  I  must  be  convinced,  that  in  this  case, 
as  in  all  others,  hypocrisy  is  the  only  vice  that  never 
can  be  cured. 

Attend,  I  pray  you,  to  the  situation  and  prosperity 
of  Benfield,  Hastings,  and  others  of  that  sort.  The 
last  of  these  has  been  treated  by  the  Company  with  an 
asperity  of  reprehension  tliat  has  no  parallel.  Tlicy 
lament  "  that  the  power  of  disposing  of  their  property 
for  perpetuity  should  fall  into  such  hands."  Yet  for 
fourteen  years,  with  little  interruption,  he  has  gov- 
erned all  their  affairs,  of  every  description,  with  an 
absolute  sway.  He  has  had  himself  the  means  of 
heaping  up  immense  wealth  ;  and  during  that  whole 
period,  the  fortunes  of  hundreds  have, depended  on 
his  smiles  and  frowns.  Ho  himself  tells  you  he  is 
incumbered  with  two  hundred  and  fifty  young  gentle- 
men, some  of  them  of  the  best  families  in  England, 
all  of  whom  aim  at  returning  with  vast  fortunes  to 
Europe  in  the  prime  of  life.     He  has,  then,  two  hun- 


SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX's   EAST   INDIA   BILL.         511 

dred  and  fifty  of  your  children  as  his  hostages  for 
your  good  behavior ;  and  loaded  for  years,  as  he 
has  been,  with  the  execrations  of  the  natives,  with 
the  censures  of  the  Court  of  Directors,  and  struck 
and  blasted  with  resolutions  of  this  House,  he  still 
maintains  the  most  despotic  power  ever  known  in 
India.  He  domineers  with  an  overbearing  sway  in 
the  assemblies  of  his  pretended  masters  ;  and  it  is 
thought  in  a  degree  rash  to  venture  to  name  his 
offences  in  this  House,  even  as  grounds  of  a  legis- 
lative remedy. 

On  the  other  hand,  consider  the  fate  of  those  who 
have  met  with  the  applauses  of  the  Directors.  Colo- 
nel Monson,  one  of  the  best  of  men,  had  his  days 
shortened  by  the  applauses,  destitute  of  the  support, 
of  the  Company.  General  Clavering,  whose  pane- 
gyric was  made  in  every  dispatch  from  England, 
whose  hearse  was  bedewed  with  the  tears  and  hung 
round  with  the  eulogies  of  the  Court  of  Directors, 
burst  an  honest  and  indignant  heart  at  the  treachery 
of  those  who  ruined  him  by  their  praises.  Uncom- 
mon patience  and  temper  supported  Mr.  Francis  a 
while  longer  under  the  baneful  influence  of  the  com- 
mendation of  the  Court  of  Directors.  His  health, 
however,  gave  way  at  length  ;  and  in  utter  despair, 
he  returned  to  Europe.  At  his  return,  the  doors  of 
the  India  House  were  shut  to  this  man  who  had  been 
the  object  of  tlieir  constant  admiration.  He  has,  in- 
deed, escaped  with  life ;  l)ut  he  has  forfeited  all  ex- 
pectation of  credit,  consequence,  party,  and  following. 
He  may  well  say,  "  Me  nemo  mhustro  fur  erit^  atque 
ideo  nulli  comes  exeo.''''  This  man,  whose  deep  reach 
of  thought,  whose  large  legislative  conceptions,  and 
whose  grand  plans  of  policy  make  the  most  shining 


512  SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

part  of  our  Reports,  from  whence  we  have  all  learned 
our  lessons,  if  we  have  learned  any  good  ones,  —  this 
man,  from  whose  materials  those  gentlemen  who 
have  least  acluiowledged  it  have  yet  spoken  as  from 
a  brief,  — this  man,  driven  from  his  employment,  dis- 
countenanced by  the  Directors,  has  had  no  other 
reward,  and  no  other  distinction,  but  that  inward 
"  sunshine  of  the  soul "  which  a  good  conscience  can 
always  bestow  upon  itself.  He  has  not  yet  had  so 
much  as  a  good  word,  but  from  a  person  too  insignifi- 
cant to  make  any  other  return  for  the  means  with 
whicli  he  has  been  furnished  for  performing  his  share 
of  a  duty  which  is  equally  urgent  on  us  all. 

Add  to  this,  that,  from  the  highest  in  place  to  the 
lowest,  every  British  subject,  who,  in  obedience  to 
the  Company's  orders,  has  boon  active  in  the  discov- 
ery of  peculations,  has  been  ruined.  They  have  been 
driven  from  India.  When  they  made  their  appeal*  at 
home,  they  were  not  heard  ;  when  they  attempted  to 
return,  they  were  stopped.  No  artifice  of  fraud,  no 
violence  of  power,  has  been  omitted  to  destroy  them 
in  character  as  well  as  in  fortune. 

Worse,  far  worse,  has  been  the  fate  of  the  poor 
creatures,  the  natives  of  India,  whom  the  hypocrisy 
of  the  Company  has  betrayed  into  complaint  of  oppres- 
sion and  discovery  of  peculation.  The  first  women 
in  Bengal,  the  Ranny  of  Rajeshahi,  the  Ranny  of 
Burdwan,  the  Ranny  of  Ambooali,  by  their  weak  and 
thoughtless  trust  in  the  Company's  honor  and  pro- 
tection, are  utterly  ruined  :  the  first  of  these  women, 
a  person  of  princely  rank,  and  once  of  correspondent 
fortune,  who  paid  above  two  hundred  thousand  a  year 
quit-rent  to  the  state,  is,  according  to  very  credible  in- 
formation, so  completely  beggared  as  to  stand  in  need 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  513 

of  the  relief  of  alms.  Maliomed  Rcza  Khan,  the  sec- 
ond Mussulman  in  Bengal,  for  having  been  distin- 
guished by  the  ill-omened  honor  of  the  conntenance 
and  protection  of  the  Court  of  Directors,  was,  without 
the  pretence  of  any  inquiry  whatsoever  into  his  con- 
duct, stripped  of  all  his  employments,  and  reduced  to 
the  lowest  condition.  Ilis  ancient  rival  for  power, 
the  Rnjali  Nundcomar,  was,  by  an  insult  on  every- 
thing wliich  India  holds  respectable  and  sacred, 
hanged  in  the  face  of  all  his  nation  by  the  judges 
you  sent  to  protect  that  people :  hanged  for  a  pre- 
tended crime,  upon  an  ex  post  facto  British  act  of 
Parliament,  in  the  midst  of  his  evidence  against  Mr. 
Hastings.  The  accuser  they  saw  hanged.  The  culprit, 
without  acquittal  or  inquiry,  triumphs  on  the  ground 
of  tliat  murder:  a  murder,  not  of  Nundcomar  only,  but 
of  all  living  testimony,  and  even  of  evidence  yet  un- 
born. From  that  time  not  a  complaint  has  been  heard 
from  the  natives  against  their  governors.  All  the 
grievances  of  India  have  found  a  complete  remedy. 

Men  will  not  look  to  acts  of  Parliament,  to  regula- 
tions, to  declarations,  to  votes,  and  resolutions.  No, 
they  arc  not  such  fools.  They  will  ask,  What  is  the 
road  to  power,  credit,  wealth,  and  honors?  They 
will  ask,  What  conduct  ends  in  neglect,  disgrace,  pov- 
erty, exile,  prison,  and  gibbet  ?  These  will  teach 
them  the  course  which  they  are  to  follow.  It  is  your 
distribution  of  these  that  will  give  the  character  and 
tone  to  your  government.  All  the  rest  is  miserable 
grimrice. 

When  I  accuse  the  Court  of  Directors  of  this  habit- 
ual treachery  in  the  use  of  reward  and  punishment, 
I  do  not  mean  to  include  all  the  individuals  in  that 
court.     There  have  been.  Sir,  very  frequently  men 

VOL.  II  33 


514         SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX's   EAST   INDIA   BILL. 

of  the  greatest  integrity  and  virtue  amongst  them  ; 
and  the  contrariety  in  the  declarations  and  conduct 
of  that  court  lias  arisen,  I  take  it,  from  this,  —  that 
the  honest  Directors  have,  by  the  force  of  matter  of 
fact  on  the  records,  carried  the  reprobation  of  the  evil 
measures  of  the  servants  in  India.  Tliis  could  not 
be  prevented,  whilst  these  records  stared  them  in  the 
face  ;  nor  were  the  delinquents,  either  here  or  there, 
very  solicitous  about  their  reputation,  as  long  as  they 
were  able  to  secure  their  power.  The  agreement  of 
their  partisans  to  censure  them  blunted  for  a  while 
the  edge  of  a  severe  proceeding.  It  obtained  for 
them  a  character  of  impartiality,  which  enabled  them 
to  recommend  with  some  sort  of  grace,  what  will 
always  carry  a  plausible  appearance,  those  treacher- 
ous expedients  called  moderate  measures.  Whilst 
these  were  under  discussion,  new  matter  of  complaint 
came  over,  which  seemed  to  antiquate  the  first.  The 
same  circle  was  here  trod  round  once  more ;  and 
thus  through  years  they  proceeded  in  a  compromise 
of  censure  for  punishment,  until,  by  shame  and  de- 
spair, one  after  another,  almost  every  man  vdio  pre- 
ferred his  duty  to  the  Company  to  the  interest  of  their 
servants  has  been  driven  from  that  court. 

This,  Sir,  has  been  their  conduct :  and  it  has  been 
the  result  of  the  alteration  which  was  insensibly  made 
in  their  constitution.  The  change  was  made  insensi- 
bly ;  but  it  is  now  strong  and  adult,  and  as  public 
and  declared  as  it  is  fixed  beyond  all  power  of  refor- 
mation :  so  that  there  is  none  who  hears  me  that  is 
not  as  certain  as  I  am,  that  the  Company,  in  the 
sense  in  which  it  was  formerly  understood,  has  no 
existence. 

The  question  is  not,  what  injury  you  may  do  to  the 


SPEECH    ON    MK.  FOX'S   EAST   INDIA    BILL.  515 

proprietors  of  India  stock  ;  for  there  are  no  such  men 
to  be  injured.  If  the  active,  ruling  part  of  the  Com- 
pany, who  form  the  General  Court,  who  fill  the  offices 
and  direct  the  measures,  (the  rest  tell  for  nothing,) 
"were  persons  who  held  their  stock  as  a  means  of 
their  subsistence,  who  in  the  part  they  took  were  on- 
ly concerned  in  the  government  of  India  for  the  rise 
or  fall  of  their  dividend,  it  would  be  indeed  a  defec- 
tive plan  of  policy.  The  interest  of  the  people  who 
are  governed  by  them  would  not  be  their  primary  ob- 
ject,—  perhaps  a  very  small  part  of  their  consideration 
at  all.  But  then  they  might  well  be  depended  on,  and 
perhaps  more  than  persons  in  other  respects  prefera- 
ble, for  preventing  the  peculations  of  their  servants  to 
their  own  prejudice.  Such  a  body  would  not  easily 
have  left  their  trade  as  a  spoil  to  the  avarice  of  those 
who  received  their  wages.  But  now  things  are  to- 
tally reversed.  The  stock  is  of  no  value,  whether  it 
be  the  qualification  of  a  Director  or  Proprietor  ;  and 
it  is  impossible  that  it  should.  A  Director's  qualifi- 
cation may  be  worth  about  two  thousand  five  hundred 
pounds,  —  and  the  interest,  at  eight  per  cent,  is  about 
one  hundred  and  sixty  pounds  a  year.  Of  what  val- 
ue is  that,  whether  it  rise  to  ten,  or  fall  to  six,  or  to 
nothing,  to  him  whose  son,  before  he  is  in  Bengal  two 
months,  and  before  he  descends  the  steps  of  the  Coun- 
cil-Chamber, sells  the  grant  of  a  single  contract  for 
forty  thousand  pounds  ?  Accordingly,  the  stock  is 
bought  up  in  qualifications.  The  vote  is  not  to  pro- 
tect the  stock,  but  the  stock  is  bouglit  to  acquire  the 
vote  ;  and  the  end  of  the  vote  is  to  cover  and  support, 
against  justice,  some  man  of  power  who  has  made  an 
obnoxious  fortune  in  India,  or  to  maintain  in  power 
tliose  who  are  actually  employing  it  in  the  acquisition 


516  SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA   BILL. 

of  sucli  a  fortune,  —  and  to  avail  themselves,  in  return, 
of  his  patronage,  that  he  may  shower  the  spoils  of  the 
East,  "  barbaric  pearl  and  gold,"  on  them,  their  fam- 
ilies, and  dependants.  So  that  all  the  relations  of  the 
Company  arc  not  only  changed,  but  inverted.  The  ser- 
vants in  India  arc  not  appointed  by  the  Directors,  but 
the  Directors  are  chosen  by  them.  The  trade  is  car- 
ried on  with  their  capitals.  To  them  the  rovennes  of 
the  country  are  mortgaged.  The  seat  of  the  snpremo 
power  is  in  Calcutta.  Tlie  house  in  Lcadenhall  Street 
is  nothing  more  tlian  a  'change  for  their  agents,  fac- 
tors, and  deputies  to  meet  in,  to  take  care  of  tiieir 
affairs  and  support  their  interests,  —  and  this  so  avow- 
edly, that  we  see  the  known  agents  of  the  delinquent 
servants  marshalling  and  disciplining  their  forces,  and 
the  prime  spokesmen  in  all  their  assemblies. 

Everything  has  followed  in  this  order,  and  accord- 
ing to  the  natural  train  of  events.  I  will  close  what 
I  have  to  say  on  the  incorrigible  condition  of  the 
Company,  by  stating  to  you  a  few  facts  that  will  leave 
no  doubt  of  the  obstinacy  of  that  corporation,  and  of 
their  strength  too,  in  resisting  the  reformation  of 
their 'servants.  By  these  facts  you  will  be  enabled  to 
discover  the  sole  grounds  upon  which  they  are  tena,- 
cious  of  their  charter. 

It  is  now  more  than  two  years,  that  upon  account 
of  the  gross  abuses  and  ruinous  situation  of  the  Com- 
pany's affairs,  (which  occasioned  the  cry  of  the  whole 
world  long  before  it  was  taken  up  here,)  that  we  insti- 
tuted two  committees  to  inquire  into  tlie  mismanage- 
ments by  wliich  the  Company's  affairs  had  been  brought 
to  the  brhik  of  ruin.  These  inquiries  had  been  pursued 
with  unremitting  diligence,  and  a  great  body  of  facts 
was  collected  and  printed  for  general  information. 


SPEECH    ON    MR,  FOX's   EAST   INDIA    BILL.  517 

In  the  result  of  those  inquiries,  although  the  commit- 
tees consisted  of  very  different  descriptions,  they  were 
unanimous.  They  joined  in  censuring  the  conduct 
of  the  Indian  administration,  and  enforcing  the  re- 
sponsibility upon  two  men,  whom  this  House,  in  con- 
sequence of  these  reports,  declared  it  to  be  the  duty 
of  the  Directors  to  remove  from  their  stations,  and 
recall  to  Great  Britain,  —  ^^  because  they  had  acted  in 
a  manner  repugnant  to  the  honor  and  policy  of  this  na- 
tion^ and  thereby  brought  great  calamities  on  India  and 
enormous  expenses  on  the  East  India  Company. ^^ 

Here  was  no  attempt  on  the  charter.  Here  was 
no  question  of  their  privileges.  To  vindicate  their 
own  honor,  to  support  their  own  interests,  to  enforce 
obedience  to  their  own  orders,  —  these  were  the  solo 
object  of  the  monitory  resolution  of  this  House.  But 
as  soon  as  the  General  Court  could  assemble,  tlicy 
assembled  to  demonstrate  who  they  really  were. 
Regardless  of  the  proceedings  of  this  House,  they 
ordered  the  Directors  not  to  carry  into  effect  any 
resolution  they  might  come  to  for  tlic  removal  of 
Mr.  Hastings  and  j\Ir.  Hornby.  The  Directors,  still 
retaining  some  shadow  of  respect  to  this  House,  insti- 
tuted an  inquiry  tliemselves,  which  continued  from 
June  to  October,  and,  after  an  attentive  perusal  and 
full  consideration  of  papers,  resolved  to  take  steps  for 
removing  the  persons  who  had  been  the  objects  of 
our  resolution,  but  not  without  a  violent  struggle 
against  evidence.  Seven  Directors  went  so  far  as  to 
enter  a  protest  against  the  vote  of  their  court.  U[)on 
this  the  General  Court  takes  the  alarm :  it  reassem- 
bles ;  it  orders  the  Directors  to  rescind  their  resolu- 
tion, that  is,  not  to  recall  Mr.  Hastings  and  Mr. 
Ilornby,  and  to  despise  the  resolution  of  the  IIouso 


618  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL. 

of  Commons.  Without  so  much  as  the  pretence  of 
looking  into  a  single  paper,  without  the  formahty 
of  instituting  any  committee  of  inquiry,  they  super- 
seded all  the  labors  of  their  own  Directors  and  of 
this  House. 

It  will  naturally  occur  to  ask,  how  it  was  possible 
that  they  should  not  attempt  some  sort  of  examina- 
tion into  facts,  as  a  color  for  their  resistance  to  a 
public  authority  proceeding  so  very  deliberately,  and 
exerted,  apparently  at  least,  in  favor  of  their  own. 
The  answer,  and  the  only  answer  which  can  be 
given,  is,  that  they  were  afraid  that  their  true  rela- 
tion should  be  mistaken.  They  were  afraid  that 
their  patrons  and  masters  in  India  should  attribute 
their  support  of  them  to  an  opinion  of  their  cause, 
and  not  to  an  attachment  to  their  power.  They 
were  afraid  it  should  be  suspected  that  they  did  not 
mean  blindly  to  support  them  in  the  use  they  made 
of  that  power.  They  determined  to  show  that  they 
at  least  were  set  against  reformation  :  that  they  were 
firmly  resolved  to  bring  the  territories,  the  trade,  and 
the  stock  of  the  Company  to  ruin,  rather  than  be  want- 
ing in  fidelity  to  their  nominal  servants  and  real  mas- 
ters, in  the  ways  they  took  to  their  private  fortunes. 

Even  since  the  beginning  of  this  session,  tlie  same 
act  of  audacity  was  repeated,  with  the  same  circum- 
stances of  contempt  of  all  the  decorum  of  inquiry  on 
their  part,  and  of  all  the  proceedings  of  this  House. 
They  again  made  it  a  request  to  their  favorite,  and 
your  culprit,  to  keep  his  post,  —  and  thanked  and 
applauded  him,  without  calling  for  a  paper  which 
could  afford  light  into  the  merit  or  demerit  of  the 
transaction,  and  Avithout  giving  themselves  a  mo- 
ment's time  to  consider,  or  even  to  understand,  the 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  619 

articles  of  the  Mahratta  peace.  The  fact  is,  that  for  a 
long  time  there  was  a  struggle,  a  faint  one  indeed, 
between  the  Company  and  tlieir  servants.  But  it  is 
a  struggle  no  longer.  For  some  time  the  superiority 
has  been  decided.  The  interests  abroad  are  become 
tlie  settled  preponderating  weight  both  in-  the  Court 
of  Proprietors  and  the  Court  of  Directors.  Even  the 
attempt  you  have  made  to  inquire  into  their  prac- 
tices and  to  reform  abuses  has  raised  and  piqued 
them  to  a  far  more  regular  and  steady  su])port. 
The '  Company  has  made  a  common  cause  and  identi- 
fied themselves  with  the  destroyers  of  India.  They 
have  taken  on  themselves  all  that  mass  of  enormity ; 
they  ■  arc  supporting  what  you  have  reprobated  ; 
those  you  condemn  they  applaud,  tliose  you  order 
home  to  answer  for  their  conduct  they  request  to 
stay,  and  thereby  encourage  to  proceed  in  their  prac- 
tices. Thus  the  servants  of  the  East  India  Company 
triumph,  and  the  representatives  of  the  people  of 
Great  Britain  are  defeated. 

I  therefore  conclude,  what  you  all  conclude,  that 
this  body,  being  totally  perverted  from  the  purposes 
of  its  institution,  is  utterly  incorrigible  ;  and  because 
they  are  incorrigible,  both  in  conduct  and  constitu- 
tion, power  ought  to  be  taken  out  of  their  hands,  — 
just  on  the  same  principles  on  which  have  been  made 
all  the  just  changes  and  revolutions  of  government 
that  have  taken  place  since  the  beginning  of  the 
Avorld. 

I  will  now  say  a  few  words  to  the  general  principle 
of  the  plan  which  is  set  up  against  that  of  my  right 
honorable  friend.  It  is  to  recommit  the  government 
of  India  to  the  Court  of  Directors.  Those  who  would 
commit  the  reformation  of  India  to  the  destroyers  of 


520  SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

it  arc  the  enemies  to  that  reformation.  They  would 
make  a  distinction  between  Directors  and  Proprietors, 
which,  in  the  present  state  of  things,  does  not,  can- 
not exist.  But  a  right  honorable  gentleman  says,  he 
would  keep  the  present  government  of  India  in  the 
Court  of  Directors,  and  would,  to  curb  them,  pro- 
vide salutary  regulations.  Wonderful !  That  is,  he 
would  appoint  the  old  offenders  to  correct  tlie  old 
offences ;  and  he  would  render  the  vicious  and  the 
foolish  wise  o.nd  virtuous  by  salutary  regulations. 
He  would  appoint  the  wolf  as  guardian  of  the  sheep  ; 
but  he  has  invented  a  curious  muzzle,  by  which'  this 
protectiiig  wolf  shall  not  be  able  to  open  his  jaws 
above  an  inch  or  two  at  the  utmost.  Thus  his  work 
is  finished.  But  1  tell  the  right  honorable  gentle- 
man, that  controlled  depravity  is  not  innocence,  and 
that  it  is  not  the  labor  of  delinquency  in  chains  that 
will  correct  abuses.  Will  these  gentlemen  of  the 
direction  animadvert  on  the  partners  of  their  own 
guilt  ?  Never  did  a  serious  plan  of  amending  of  any 
old  tyrannical  establishment  propose  the  authors  and 
abettors  of  the  abuses  as  tlie  reformers  of  them.  If 
the  undone  people  of  India  see  their  old  oppressors  in 
confirmed  power,  even  by  the  reformation,  tlicy  will 
expect  nothing  but  what  they  will  certainly  feel, — 
a  continuance,  or  rather  an  aggravation,  of  all  their 
former  sufferings.  They  look  to  the  seat  of  power, 
and  to  the  persons  who  fill  it ;  and  they  despise 
those  gentlemen's  regulations  as  much  as  the  gentle- 
men do  who  talk  of  them. 

But  there  is  a  cure  for  everything.  Take  away, 
say  they,  the  Court  of  Proprietors,  and  the  Court  of 
Directors  will  do  their  duty.  Yes,  —  as  they  have 
done  it  hitherto.     Tliat  the  evils  in  India  have  solely 


SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX's    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  521 

arisen  from  tlic  Court  of  Proprietors  is  grossly  false. 
Ill  many  of  them  the  Directors  were  heartily  concur- 
ring ;  in  most  of  them  they  were  encouraging,  and 
sometimes  commanding ;  in  all  they  were  conniving. 

But  who  are  to  choose  this  well-regulated  and  re- 
forming Court  of  Directors  ?  —  Why,  the  very  Propri- 
etors who  are  excluded  from  all  management,  for  the 
abuse  of  their  power.  Tliey  will  choose,  undoubt- 
edly, out  of  themselves,  men  like  themselves ;  and 
those  Avho  are  most  forward  in  resisting  your  author- 
ity, those  who  are  most  engaged  in  faction  or  interest 
with  the  delinquents  abroad,  will  be  the  objects  of 
their  selection.  But  gentlemen  say,  that,  when  this 
choice  is  made,  the  Proprietors  are  not  to  interfere  in 
the  measures  of  the  Directors,  whilst  those  Directors 
are  busy  in  the  control  of  their  common  patrons  and 
masters  in  India.  No,  indeed,  I  believe  they  will  not 
desire  to  interfere.  They  will  choose  those  whom 
they  know  may  be  trusted,  safely  trusted,  to  act  in 
strict  conformity  to  their  common  principles,  man- 
ners, measures,  interests,  and  connections.  They  will 
want  neither  monitor  nor  control.  It  is  not  easy  to 
choose  men  to  act  in  conformity  to  a  public  interest 
against  their  private  ;  but  a  sure  dependence  may  be 
had  on  those  who  are  chosen  to  forward  their  ])rivate 
interest  at  the  expense  of  the  public.  But  if  the 
Directors  should  slip,  and  deviate  into  rectitude,  the 
punishment  is  in  the  hands  of  the  General  Court,  and 
it  will  surely  be  remembered  to  them  at  their  next 
election. 

If  the  government  of  India  wants  no  reformation, 
but  gentlemen  are  amusing  themselves  with  a  the- 
ory, conceiving  a  more  democratic  or  aristocratic 
mode  of  government  for  these  dependencies,  or  if 


522  SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

thej  are  in  a  dispute  only  about  patronage,  the  dis- 
pute is  with  me  of  so  little  concern  that  I  should  not 
take  the  pains  to  utter  an  affirmative  or  negative  to 
any  proposition  in  it.  If  it  be  only  for  a  theoretical 
amusement  that  they  arc  to  propose  a  bill,  the  thing 
is  at  best  frivolous  and  unnecessary.  But  if  the  Com- 
pany's government  is  not  only  full  of  abuse,  but  is 
one  of  the  most  corrupt  and  destructive  tyrannies 
that  probably  ever  existed  in  the  world,  (as  I  am 
sure  it  is,)  what  a  cruel  mockery  would  it  be  in  me, 
and  in  those  who  think  like  me,  to  propose  this  kind 
of  remedy  for  this  kind  of  evil ! 

I  now  come  to  the  third  objection,  —  that  this  bill 
will  increase  the  influence  of  the  crown.  An  hon- 
orable gentleman  has  demanded  of  me,  whether  I  was 
in  earnest  when  I  proposed  to  this  House  a  plan  for 
the  reduction  of  that  influence.  Indeed,  Sir,  I  was 
much,  very  much,  in  earnest.  My  heart  was  deeply 
concerned  in  it ;  and  I  hope  the  public  has  not  lost 
the  effect  of  it.  How  far  my  judgment  was  right,  for 
wbat  concerned  personal  favor  and  consequence  to 
myself,  I  shall  not  presume  to  determine  ;  nor  is  its 
effect  upon  me  of  any  moment.  But  as  to  this  bill, 
whether  it  increases  the  influence  of  the  crown,  or 
not,  is  a  question  I  should  be  ashamed  to  ask.  If  I 
am  not  able  to  correct  a  system  of  oppression  and 
tyranny,  that  goes  to  the  utter  ruin  of  thirty  millions 
of  my  fellow-creatures  and  fellow-subjects,  but  by 
some  increase  to  the  influence  of  the  crown,  I  am 
ready  here  to  declare  that  I,  who  have  been  active  to 
reduce  it,  shall  bo  at  least  as  active  and  strenuous  to 
restore  it  again.  I  am  no  lover  of  names  ;  I  contend 
for  the  substance  of  good  and  protecting  govbrnmenfc, 
let  it  come  from  what  quarter  it  will. 


SPEECH   OX   MR.  FOX'S    EAST    INDIA    BILL.  623 

But  I  am  not  obliged  to  have  recourse  i/O  tins 
expedient.  Much,  very  much,  the  contrary.  I  am 
sure  that  the  influence  of  the  crown  will  by  no 
means  aid  a  reformation  of  this  kind,  which  can 
neither  be  originated  nor  supported  but  by  the  im- 
corrupt  public  virtue  of  the  representatives  of  the 
people  of  England.  Let  it  once  get  hito  the  ordi- 
nary course  of  administration,  and  to  mo  all  hopes 
of  reformation  are  gone.  I  am  far  from  knowing  or 
believing  that  this  bill  will  increase  the  influence  of 
the  crown.  We  all  know  that  the  crown  has  ever 
had  some  influence  in  the  Court  of  Directors,  and 
that  it  has  been  extremely  increased  by  the  acts 
of  1773  and  1780.  The  gentlemen  who,  as  part  of 
their  reformation,  propose  "  a  more  active  control  on 
the  part  of  the  crown,"  which  is  to  put  the  Directors 
under  a  Secretary  of  State  specially  named  for  that 
purpose,  must  know  that  their  project  will  increase 
it  farther.  But  that  old  influence  has  had,  and  the 
new  will  have,  incurable  inconveniences,  which  can- 
not happen  under  the  Parliamentary  establishment 
proposed  in  this  bill.  An  honorable  gentleman,*  not 
now  in  his  place,  but  who  is  well  acquainted  with 
the  India  Company,  and  by  no  means  a  friend  to  this 
bill,  has  told  you  that  a  ministerial  influence  has 
always  been  predominant  in  that  body,  —  and  that  to 
make  the  Directors  pliant  to  their  purposes,  minis- 
ters generally  caused  persons  meanly  qualified  to  be 
chosen  Directors.  According  to  his  idea,  to  secure 
subserviency,  they  submitted  the  Company's  affliirs 
to  tlie  direction  of  incapacity.  Tliis  was  to  ruin  the 
Company  in  order  to  govern  it.  Tliis  was  certainly 
influence  in  the  very  worst  form  in  which  it  could 

*  Governor  Johnstone. 


524         SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX's    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

appear.  At  best  it  was  clandestine  and  irresponsi- 
ble. Whether  this  was  done  so  much  upon  system 
as  that  gentleman  supposes,  I  greatly  doubt.  But 
such  in  effect  the  operation  of  government  on  that 
court  unquestionably  was  ;  and  such,  under  a  similar 
constitution,  it  will  be  forever.  Ministers  must  be 
wholly  removed  from  the  management  of  tlic  affairs 
of  India,  or  they  will  have  an  influence  in  its  patron- 
age. The  thing  is  inevitable.  Their  sclicmc  of  a 
now  Secretary  of  State,  "  witli  a  more  vigorous  con- 
trol," is  not  much  better  than  a  repetition  of  tho 
measure  which  wo  know  by  experience  will  not  do. 
Since  the  year  1773  and  the  year  1780,  the  Company 
has  been  under  the  control  of  tho  Secretary  of  State's 
office,  and  we  had  then  three  Secretaries  of  State. 
If  more  than  this  is  done,  then  they  annihilate  the 
direction  which  they  pretend  to  support ;  and  tlicy 
augment  the  influence  of  the  crown,  of  whose  growth 
they  affect  so  great  an  horror.  But  in  truth  tliis 
scheme  of  reconciling  a  direction  really  and  truly 
deliberative  with  an  office  really  and  substantially 
controlling  is  a  sort  of  machinery  that  can  be  kept 
in  order  but  a  very  short  time.  Either  the  Directors 
will  dwindle  into  clerks,  or  the  Secretary  of  State,  as 
hitherto  has  been  the  course,  Avill  leave  everything  to 
them,  often  through  design,  often  through  neglect. 
If  both  should  affect  activity,  collision,  procrasti- 
nation, delay,  and,  in  the  end,  utter  confusion,  must 
ensue. 

But,  Sir,  there  is  one  kind  of  influence  far  greater 
than  that  of  the  nomination  to  office.  This  gentle- 
men in  opposition'  have  totally  overlooked,  although 
it  now  exists  in  its  full  vigor ;  and  it  will  do  so,  upon 
their  scheme,  in  at  least  as  much  force  as  it  does 


SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX's    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  525 

novr.  That  influence  this  bill  cuts  up  by  the  roots. 
I  mean  the  influence  of  protection.  I  shall  explain 
myself.  —  The  office  given  to  a  young  man  going  to 
India  is  of  trifling  consequence.  But  he  that  goes 
out  an  insignificant  boy  in  a  few  years  returns  a 
great  nabob.  Mr.  Hastings  says  lie  has  two  hundred 
and  fifty  of  that  kind  of  raw  materials,  who  expect 
to  bo  i-pccdily  manufactured  into  the  mcrchantablo 
quality  I  mention.  One  of  these  gentlemen,  suppose, 
returns  hither  laden  with  odium  and  with  riches. 
When  he  comes  to  England,  he  comes  as  to  a  prison, 
or  as  to  a  sanctuary ;  and  citlicr  is  ready  for  him, 
according  to  his  demeanor.  What  is  the  influence 
in  the  grant  of  any  place  in  India,  to  that  which  is 
acquired  by  the  protection  or  compromise  with  such 
guilt,  and  with  tlie  command  of  such  riches,  imder 
the  dominion  of  the  hopes  and  fears  which  power  is 
able  to  hold  out  to  every  man  in  that  condition  ? 
That  man's  whole  fortune,  half  a  million  perhaps, 
becomes  an  instrument  of  influence,  without  a  shil- 
ling of  charge  to  the  civil  list :  and  the  influx  of 
fortunes  which  stand  in  need  of  this  protection  is 
continual.  It  works  both  ways  :  it  influences  the 
delinquent,  and  it  may  corrupt  the  minister.  Com- 
pare the  influence  acquired  by  appointing,  for  in- 
stance, even  a  Govcrnor-Geiieral,  and  that  obtained 
by  protecting  him.  I  shall  push  this  no  further.  But 
I  wish  gentlemen  to  roll  it  a  little  in  their  own 
minds. 

The  bill  before  you  cuts  ofl"  this  source  of  influence. 
Its  design  and  main  scope  is,  to  regulate  the  admin- 
istration of  India  upon  the  principles  of  a  court  of 
judicature,  —  and  to  exclude,  as  far  as  human  pru- 
dence can  exclude,  all  possibility  of  a  corrupt  partial- 


526         SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX's    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

i 

ity,  in  appointing  to  office,  or  supporting  in  office,  or 
covering  from  inquiry  and  punishment,  any  person 
who  has  abused  or  shall  abuse  his  authority.  At 
the  board,  as  appointed  and  regulated  by  this  bill, 
reward  and  punishment  cannot  be  shifted  and  re- 
versed by  a  whisper.  That  commission  becomes  fatal 
to  cabal,  to  intrigue,  and  to  secret  representation, 
those  instruments  of  the  ruin  of  India.  He  that  cuts 
off  the  means  of  premature  fortune,  and  the  power 
of  protecting  it  when  acquired,  strikes  a  deadly  blow 
at  the  great  fund,  the  bank,  the  capital  stock  of  In- 
dian influence,  which  cannot  be  vested  anywhere,  or 
in  any  hands,  without  most  dangerous  consequences 
to  the  public. 

The  third  and  contradictory  objection  is,  that  this 
bill  docs  not  increase  the  influence  of  the  crown  ;  on 
the  contrary,  that  the  just  power  of  the  crown  will  be 
lessened,  and  transferred  to  the  use  of  a  party,  by  giv- 
ing the  patronage  of  India  to  a  commission  nominated 
by  Parliament  and  independent  of  the  crown.  The 
contradiction  is  glaring,  and  it  has  been  too  well  ex- 
posed to  make  it  necessary  for  me  to  insist  upon  it. 
But  passing  the  contradiction,  and  taking  it  without 
any  relation,  of  all  objections  that  is  the  most  extraor- 
dinary. Do  not  gentlemen  know  that  the  crown  has 
not  at  present  the  grant  of  a  single  office  under  the 
Company,  civil  or  military,  at  home  or  abroad  ?  So 
far  as  the  crown  is  concerned,  it  is  certainly  rather  a 
gainer  ;  for  the  vacant  offices  in  the  new  commission 
are  to  be  filled  up  by  the  king. 

It  is  argued,  as  a  part  of  the  bill  derogatory  to  the 
prerogatives  of  the  crown,  that  the  commissioners 
named  in  the  bill  are  to  continue  for  a  short  term 
of  years,  too  short  in  my  opinion,  —  and  because,  dur- 


SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX's   EAST   INDIA   BILL.  527 

ing  that  time,  they  arc  not  at  the  mercy  of  every  pre- 
dominant faction  of  the  court.  Does  not  this  objection 
lie  against  the  present  Directors,  —  none  of  whom  are 
named  by  the  crown,  and  a  proportion  of  wliom  hold 
for  this  very  term  of  fonr  years  ?  Did  it  not  lie 
against  the  Governor- General  and  Council  named  in 
the  act  of  1773,  —  who  were  invested  by  name,  as  the 
present  commissioners  are  to  be  appointed  in  the 
body  of  the  act  of  Parliament,  who  were  to  hold  their 
places  for  a  term  of  years,  and  were  not  removable  at 
the  discretion  of  the  crown  ?  Did  it  not  lie  against 
the  reappointment,  in  the  year  1780,  upon  the  very 
same  terms  ?  Yet  at  nono  of  these  times,  whatever 
other  objections  the  scheme  might  be  liable  to,  was 
it  supposed  to  be  a  derogation  to  the  just  prerogative 
of  the  crown,  that  a  commission  created  by  act  of 
Parliament  should  have  its  members  named  by  the 
authority  which  called  it  into  existence.  This  is 
not  the  disposal  by  Parliament  of  any  office  derived 
from  the  authority  of  the  crown,  or  now  disposable 
by  that  authority.  It  is  so  far  from  being  anything 
new,  violent,  or  alarming,  that  I  do  not  recollect,  in 
any  Parliamentary  commission,  down  to  the  commis- 
sioners of  the  land-tax,  that  it  has  ever  been  other- 
wise. 

The  objection  of  the  tenure  for  four  years  is  an 
objection  to  all  places  that  are  not  held  during  pleas- 
ure ;  but  in  that  objection  I  pronounce  the  gentle- 
men, from  my  knowledge  of  their  complexion  and  of 
their  principles,  to  be  perfectly  in  earnest.  The  party 
(say  these  gentlemen)  of  the  minister  who  proposes 
this  scheme  will  be  rendered  powerful  by  it ;  for  lie 
will  name  his  party  friends  to  the  commission.  This 
objection  agahist  party  is  a  party  objection ;  and  in 


528  SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL. 

this,  too,  these  gentlemen  are  perfectly  serious.  They 
SCO,  that,  if,  by  any  intrigue,  they  should  succeed  to 
office,  they  will  lose  the  clandestine  patronage,  the 
true  instrument  of  clandestine  influence,  enjoyed  in 
the  name  of  subservient  Directors,  and  of  wealthy, 
trembling  Indian  delinquents.  But  as  often  as  they 
are  beaten  off  this  ground,  they  return  to  it  again. 
The  minister  will  name  his  friends,  and  persons  of 
his  own  party.  Whom  should  he  name?  Should 
he  name  his  adversaries  ?  Should  he  name  those 
whom  he  cannot  trust?  Should  he  name  those  to 
execute  his  plans  who  arc  the  declared  enemies  to 
the  principles  of  his  reform  ?  His  character  is  here 
at  stake.  If  he  proposes  for  his  own  ends  (but  he 
never  will  propose)  such  names  as,  from  their  want 
of  rank,  fortune,  character,  ability,  or  knowledge,  are 
likely  to  betray  or  to  fall  short  of  their  trust,  he  is  in 
an  independent  House  of  Commons,  —  in  an  House 
of  Commons  which  has,  by  its  own  virtue,  destroyed 
the  instruments  of  Parliamentary  subservience.  This 
House  of  Commons  would  not  endure  the  sound  of 
such  names.  He  would  perish  by  the  means  which 
he  is  supposed  to  pursue  for  the  security  of  his  power. 
The  first  pledge  he  must  give  of  his  sincerity  in  this 
great  reform  will  be  in  the  confidence  which  ought  to 
be  reposed  in  those  names. 

For  my  part,  Sir,  in  this  business  I  put  all  indi- 
rect considerations  wholly  out  of  my  mind.  My 
sole  question,  on  each  clause  of  the  bill,  amounts  to 
this:  —  Is  the  measure  proposed  required  by  the 
necessities  of  India  ?  I  cannot  consent  totally  to  lose 
sight  of  the  real  wants  of  the  people  who  are  the 
objects  of  it,  and  to  hunt  after  every  matter  of  party 
squabble  that  may  be  started  on  the  several  provis- 


SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S   EAST   INDIA    BILL.  529 

ions.  Oil  the  question  of  the  duration  of  the  com- 
mission I  am  dear  and  decided.  Can  I,  can  any  one 
who  has  taken  the  smallest  trouble  to  be  informed 
concerning  the  affairs  of  India,  amuse  himself  with  so 
strange  an  imagination  as  that  the  habitual  despotism 
and  oppression,  that  the  monopolies,  the  peculations, 
the  universal  destruction  of  all  the  legal  authority  of 
this  kingdom,  which  have  been  for  twenty  years  ma- 
turing to  their  present  enormity,  combined  with  the 
distance  of  the  scene,  the  boldness  and  artifice  of  de- 
linquents, their  combination,  their  excessive  wealth, 
and  the  faction  they  have  made  in  England,  can  be 
fidly  corrected  in  a  shorter  term  than  four  years  ? 
None  has  hazarded  such  an  assertion  ;  none  who  has 
a  regard  for  his  reputation  will  hazard  it. 

Sir,  the  gentlemen,  whoever  they  are,  who  shall  be 
appointed  to  this  commission,  have  an  luidertaking 
of  magnitude  on  their  hands,  and  tlieir  stability  must 
not  only  bo,  but  it  nuist  be  thought,  real ;  and  who 
is  it  will  believe  that  anything  short  of  an  estab- 
lishment made,  siipportcd,  and  fixed  in  its  duration, 
with  all  the  authority  of  Parliament,  can  be  thought 
secure  of  a  reasonable  stability  ?  The  plan  of  my 
honorable  friend  is  the  reverse  of  that  of  reforming 
by  the  authors  of  the  abuse.  The  best  we  could 
expect  from  them  is,  that  they  should  not  continue 
tlieir  ancient,  pernicious  activity.  To  those  we  could 
think  of  nothing  but  applying  control;  as  we  are  sure 
tliat  even  a  regard  to  their  rej)utation  (if  any  such 
thing  exists  in  them)  would  oblige  them  to  cover,  to 
conceal,  to  suppress,  and  consequently  to  prevent  all 
cure  of  the  grievances  of  liuha.  For  what  can  be 
discovered  which  is  not  to  their  disgrace?  Every 
attempt  to  correct  an  abuse  would  be  a  satire  on 

VOL.    II.  34 


530         SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX's   EAST   INDIA   BILL. 

their  former  administration.  Every  man  they  should 
pretend  to  call  to  an  account  would  be  found  their 
instrument,  or  their  accomplice.  They  can  never 
see  a  beneficial  regulation,  but  with  a  view  to  defeat 
it.  The  shorter  the  tenure  of  siich  persons,  the  better 
would  be  the  chance  of  some  amendment. 

But  the  system  of  the  bill  is  different.  It  calls  in 
persons  in  no  wise  concerned  with  any  act  censured 
by  Parliament,  —  persons  generated  with,  and  for,  the 
reform,  of  which  they  are  themselves  the  most  essen- 
tial part.  To  these  the  chief  regulations  in  the  bill 
are  helps,  not  fetters :  they  are  authorities  to  sup- 
port, not  regulations  to  restrain  them.  From  these 
we  look  for  much  more  than  innocence.  From  these 
we  expect  zeal,  firmness,  and  unremitted  activity. 
Their  duty,  their  character,  binds  them  to  proceed- 
ings of  vigor ;  and  they  ought  to  have  a  tenure  in 
their  office  which  precludes  all  fear,  whilst  they  are 
acting  up  to  the  purposes  of  their  trust,  —  a  tenure 
without  which  none  will  undertake  plans  that  re- 
quire a  series  and  system  of  acts.  When  they  know 
that  they  cannot  be  whispered  out  of  their  duty,  that 
their  public  conduct  cannot  be  censured  without  a 
public  discussion,  that  the  schemes  which  they  have 
begun  will  not  be  committed  to  those  who  will  have 
an  interest  and  credit  in  defeating  and  disgracing 
them,  then  we  may  entertain  hopes.  The  tenure  is 
for  four  years,  or  during  their  good  behavior.  Tbat 
good  behavior  is  as  long  as  they  are  true  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  bill ;  and  the  judgment  is  in  either 
House  of  Parliament.  This  is  the  tenure  of  your 
judges ;  and  the  valuable  principle  of  the  bill  is  to 
make  a  judicial  administration  for  India.  It  is  to 
give  confidence  in  the  execution  of  a  duty  which  re- 


SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX'S   EAST  INDIA   BILL.         531 

quires  as  much  perseverance  and  fortitude  as  can 
fall  to  the  lot  of  any  that  is  born  of  woman. 

As  to  the  gain  by  party  from  the  right  honorable 
gentleman's  bill,  let  it  be  shown  that  this  supposed 
party  advantage  is  pernicious  to  its  object,  and  the 
objection  is  of  weight ;  but  until  this  is  done,  (and 
this  has  not  been  attciupted,)  I  shall  consider  the  sole 
objection  from  its  tendency  to  promote  the  interest 
of  a  party  as  altogether  contemptible.     The  kingdom 
is  divided  into  parties,  and  it  ever  has  been  so  di- 
vided, and  it  ever  will  be  so  divided ;  and  if  no  sys- 
tem for  relieving  the  subjects  of  this  kingdom  from 
oppression,  and  snatching  its  affairs  from  ruin,  can 
be  adopted,  until  it  is  demonstrated  that  no  party  can 
derive  an  advantage  from  it,  no  good  can  ever  be 
done  in  this  country.     If  party  is  to  derive  an  advan- 
tage from  the  reform  of  India,  (which  is  more  than  I 
know  or  believe,)  it  ought  to  be  that  party  which 
alone  in  this  kingdom  has  its  reputation,  nay,  its 
very  being,  pledged  to  the  protection  and  preserva- 
tion of  that  part  of  the  empire.     Great  fear  is  ex- 
pressed that  the  commissioners  named  in  this  bill 
will  show  some  regard  to  a  minister  out  of  place. 
To  men  made  like  the  objectors  this  must  appear 
criminal.     Let  it,  however,  be  remembered  by  others, 
that,  if  the  commissioners  should  be  his  friends,  they 
cannot  be  his  slaves.     But  dependants  are  not  in 
a  condition  to  adhere  to  friends,  nor  to  principles,  nor 
to  any  uniform  line  of  conduct.     They  may  begin 
censors,  and  be  obliged  to  end  accomplices.     They 
may  be  even  put  under  the  direction  of  those  whom 
they  were  appointed  to  punish. 

The  fourth  and  last  ol)jcction  is,  that  the  bill  will 
hurt  public  credit.     I  do  not  know  whether  this  re- 


632         SPEECH    ON    MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA   BILL. 

quires  an  answer.  But  if  it  does,  look  to  yoiu-  foun- 
dations. The  sinking  fund  is  the  pillar  of  credit 
in  this  country ;  and  let  it  not  be  forgot,  that  the 
distresses,  owing  to  the  mismanagement,  of  the  East 
India  Company,  have  already  taken  a  million  from 
that  fund  by  the  non-payment  of  duties.  The  bills 
drawn  iii)on  the  Company,  which  are  about  four  mil- 
lions, cannot  be  accepted  without  the  consent  of  the 
Treasury.  The  Treasury,  acting  under  a  Parliamen- 
tary trust  and  authority,  pledges  the  public  for  these 
millions.  If  they  pledge  the  public,  the  piiblic  must 
have  a  security  in  its  hands  for  the  management  of 
this  interest,  or  the  national  credit  is  gone.  For 
otherwise  it  is  not  only  the  East  India  Company, 
which  is  a  great  interest,  that  is  undone,  but,  clinging 
to  the  security  of  all  your  funds,  it  drags  down  the 
rest,  and  the  whole  fabric  perishes  in  one  ruin.  If 
this  bill  does  not  provide  a  direction  of  integrity  and 
of  ability  competent  to  that  trust,  the  objection  is 
fatal ;  if  it  docs,  public  credit  must  depend  on  the 
support  of  the  bill. 

It  has  been  said,  If  you  violate  this  charter,  what 
security  has  the  charter  of  the  Bank,  in  which  public 
credit  is  so  deeply  concerned,  and  even  the  charter  of 
London,  in  which  the  rights  of  so  many  subjects  are 
involved  ?  I  answer,  In  the  like  case  they  have  no 
security  at  all,  —  no,  no  security  at  all.  If  the  Bank 
should,  by  every  species  of  mismanagement,  fall  into 
a  state  similar  to  that  of  the  East  India  Company,  • — if 
it  should  be  oppressed  with  demands  it  could  not  an- 
swer, engagements  which  it  could  not  perform,  and 
with  bills  for  whicli  it  could  not  procure  payment,  — 
no  charter  should  protect  the  mismanagement  from 
correction,  and  such  public  grievances  from  redress. 


SPEECH    ON   MR.  FOX'S    EAST   INDIA    BILL.  533 

If  the  city  of  London  had  tlic  means  and  will  of  de- 
stroying an  empire,  and  of  cruelly  opprQSsing  and 
tyrannizing  over  millions  of  men  as  good  as  them- 
selves, the  charter  of  the  city  of  London  should  prove 
no  sanction  to  such  tyranny  and  such  oppression. 
Charters  arc  kept,  when  their  purposes  are  main- 
tained :  they  are  violated,  when  the  privilege  is  sup- 
ported against  its  end  and  its  ohject. 

Now,  Sir,  I  have  finished  all  I  proposed  to  say,  as 
my  reasons  for  giving  my  vote  to  tliis  hill.  If  I  am 
wrong,  it  is  not  for  want  of  pains  to  know  what  is 
right.  This  pledge,  at  least,  of  my  rectitude  I  havo 
given  to  my  country. 

And  now,  having  done  my  duty  to  the  bill,  let  me 
say  a  word  to  the  author.  I  should  leave  him  to  his 
own  noble  sentiments,  if  the  unworthy  and  illiberal 
lan2;uaQ;e  with  which  he  has  been  treated,  beyond  all 
example  of  Parliamentary  liberty,  did  not  make  a  few 
words  necessary,  —  not  so  much  in  justice  to  liim  as 
to  my  own  feelings.  I  must  say,  then,  that  it  will  bo 
a  distinction  honorable  to  the  age,  that  the  rescue  of 
the  greatest  number  of  the  human  race  that  ever 
were  so  grievously  oppressed  from  the  greatest  tyr- 
anny that  was  ever  exercised  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of 
abilities  and  dispositions  equal  to  the  task, —  that  it 
has  fallen  to  one  who  has  the  enlargement  to  compre- 
hend, the  spirit  to  undertake,  and  the  eloquence  to 
support  so  great  a  measure  of  hazardous  benevo- 
lence. His  spirit  is  not  owing  to  his  ignorance  of 
the  state  of  men  and  things:  he  well  knows  what 
snares  arc  spread  al)out  his  path,  from  personal  ani- 
mosity, from  court  intrigues,  and  possibly  from  popu- 
lar delusion.  But  lie  lias  put  to  hazard  his  case,  his 
security,  his  interest,  his  power,  even  liis  darling  pop- 


634         SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX'S   EAST   INDIA   BILL. 

ularity,  for  the  benefit  of  a  people  whom  ho  has  never 
seen.  This  is  the  road  that  all  heroes  have  trod  be- 
fore him.  He  is  traduced  and  abused  for  his  sup- 
posed motives.  He  will  remember  that  obloquy  is  a 
necessary  ingredient  in  the  composition  of  all  true 
glory :  he  will  remember  that  it  was  not  only  in  the 
Roman  customs,  but  it  is  in  the  nature  and  constitu- 
tion of  things,  that  calumny  and  abuse  are  essential 
parts  of  triumph.  These  thoughts  will  support  a 
mind  which  only  exists  for  honor  under  the  burden 
of  temporary  reproach.  He  is  doing,  indeed,  a  great 
good,  —  such  as  rarely  falls  to  the  lot,  and  almost  as 
rarely  coincides  with  the  desires,  of  any  man.  Let 
him  use  his  time.  Let  him  give  the  whole  length  of 
the  reins  to  his  benevolence.  He  is  now  on  a  great 
eminence,  where  the  eyes  of  mankind  are  turned  to 
him.  He  may  live  long,  ho  may  do  much ;  but 
here  is  the  summit:  he  never  can  exceed  what  he 
does  this  day. 

He  has  faults ;  but  they  are  faults  that,  though  they 
may  in  a  small  degree  tarnish  the  lustre  and  some- 
times impede  the  inarch  of  his  abilities,  have  nothing 
in  them  to  extinguish  the  fire  of  great  virtues.  In 
those  faults  there  is  no  mixture  of  deceit,  of  hypoc- 
risy, of  pride,  of  ferocity,  of  complexional  despotism, 
or  want  of  feeling  for  the  distresses  of  mankind. 
His  are  faults  which  might  exist  in  a  descendant  of 
Henry  the  Fourth  of  France,  as  they  did  exist  in  that 
father  of  his  country.  Henry  the  Fourth  Avishcd 
that  he  might  live  to  see  a  fowl  in  the  pot  of  every 
peasant  in  his  kingdom.  That  sentiment  of  homely 
benevolence  was  worth  all  the  splendid  sayhigs  that 
are  recorded  of  kings.  But  he  wished  perhaps  for 
more  than  could  be  obtained,  and  the  goodness  of 


SPEECH   ON   MR.  FOX'S   EAST  INDIA   BILL.         535 

the  man  exceeded  the  power  of  the  king.  But  this 
gentleman,  a  subject,  may  this  day  say  this  at  least 
with  truth,  —  that  he  secures  the  rice  in  his  pot  to 
every  man  in  India.  A  poet  of  antiquity  thought 
it  one  of  the  first  distinctions  to  a  prince  whom  he 
meant  to  celebrate,  that  through  a  long  succession  of 
generations  he  had  been  the  progenitor  of  an  able 
and  virtuous  citizen  who  by  force  of  the  arts  of  peace 
had  corrected  governments  of  oppression  and  sup- 
pressed wars  of  rapine. 

Indole  proh  quanta  juvcnis,  quantumque  daturus 
AusonioB  populis  vcntura  in  ssccula  civcm ! 
Illc  super  Gangcm,  super  cxauditus  ct  Indos, 
Implcbit  terras  voce,  ct  furialia  bella 
Fulminc  compescct  linguae. — 

This  was  what  was  said  of  the  predecessor  of  the  only 
person  to  whose  eloquence  it  does  not  wrong  that 
of  the  mover  of  this  bill  to  be  compared.  But  the 
Ganges  and  the  Indus  are  the  patrimony  of  the  fame 
of  my  honorable  friend,  and  not  of  Cicero.  I  con- 
fess I  anticipate  with  joy  the  reward  of  those  whose 
whole  consequence,  power,  and  authority  exist  only 
for  the  benefit  of  mankind;  and  I  carry  my  mind  to 
all  the  people,  and  all  the  names  and  descriptions, 
that,  relieved  by  this  bill,  will  bless  the  labors  of  this 
Parliament,  and  the  confidence  which  the  best  House 
of  Commons  has  given  to  him  who  the  best  deserves 
it.  The  little  cavils  of  party  will  not  be  heard 
where  freedom  and  happiness  will  be  felt.  There  is 
not  a  tongue,  a  nation,  or  religion  in  India,  which 
will  not  bless  the  presiding  care  and  manly  bei  efi- 
cence  of  this  House,  and  of  him  who  proposes  to  you 
this  great  work.  Your  names  will  never  bo  sepa- 
rated before  the  throne  of  the  Divine  Goodness,  in 


536  SPEECH    0??    MR.  fox's    EAST    INDIA    BILL. 

whatever  language,  or  witli  whatever  rites,  pardon  is 
asked  for  sin,  and  reward  for  those  who  imitate  the 
Godhead  in  His  universal  bounty  to  His  creatures. 
These  lienors  3'ou  deserve,  and  they  will  surely  be 
paid,  when  all  the  jargon  of  influence  and  party 
and  patronage  are  swept  into  oblivion. 

I  have  spoken  what  I  tliink,  and  what  I  feel,  of  the 
mover  of  this  bill.  An  honorable  friend  of  mine, 
speaking  of  his  merits,  was  charged  with  ha\ing 
made  a- studied  panegyric.  I  don't  know  Avhat  his 
was.  ]\Iinc,  I  am  sure,  is  a  studied  panegyric,  —  the 
fruit  of  much  meditation,  the  result  of  the  observa- 
tion of  near  twenty  years.  For  my  own  part,  I  am 
happy  that  I  have  lived  to  see  tliis  day ;  I  feel  myself 
overpaid  for  tlie  labors  of  eighteen  years,  when,  at 
this  late  period,  I  am  able  to  take  my  share,  by  one 
humble  vote,  in  destroying  a  tyranny  that  exists  to 
the  disgrace  of  this  nation  and  the  destruction  of  so 
large  a  part  of  the  human  species. 


REPRESENTATION   TO   HIS   MAJESTY, 

SIOVED   IN 

THE  HOUSE   OF   COMMONS 

BY  THE  RIGHT  HON.  EDMUND  BURKE,  AND  SECONDED 
BY  WILLIAM  WINDHAM,  ESQ., 

ON  MONDAY,  JUNE  14,  1784, 

AND  NEGATIVED. 


WITH  A   PREFACE   AND   NOTES. 


PREFACE. 


THE  representation  now  given  to  the  public  re- 
lates to  some  of  the  most  essential  privileges  of 
the  House  of  Commons.  It  would  appear  of  little 
importance,  if  it  were  to  be  judged  by  its  reception 
in  the  place  where  it  was  proposed.  There  it  was 
rejected  without  debate.  The  subject  matter  may, 
perhaps,  hereafter  appear  to  merit  a  more  serious 
consideration.  Thinking  men  will  scarcely  regard 
the  penal  dissolution  of  a  Parliament  as  a  very  tri- 
fling concern.  Such  a  dissolution  must  operate  for- 
cibly as  an  example  ;  and  it  much  imports  the  people 
of  this  kingdom  to  consider  what  lesson  that  example 
is  to  teach. 

The  late  House  of  Commons  was  not  accused  of 
an  interested  compliance  to  the  will  of  a  court.  The 
charge  against  them  was  of  a  different  nature.  They 
were  charged  with  being  actuated  by  an  extrava- 
gant spirit  of  independency.  This  species  of  offence 
is  so  closely  connected  with  merit,  this  vice  bears 
so  near  a  resemblance  to  virtue,  that  the  flight  of 
a  House  of  Commons  above  the  exact  temperate 
medium  of  independence  ought  to  be  correctly  as- 
certained, lest  we  give  encouragement  to  dispositions 
of  a  less  generous  nature,  and  less  safe  for  tlie  peo- 
ple ;  we  ought  to  call  for  very  solid  and  convincing 
proofs  of  the  existence,  and  of  the  magnitude,  too, 


540  PREFACE. 

of  the  evils  wliich  arc  cliargcd  to  an  independent' 
spirit,  before  we  give  sanction  to  any  measure,  that, 
by  checking  a  spirit  so  easily  damped,  and  so  hard  to 
be  excited,  may  affect  the  liberty  of  a  part  of  our 
Constitution,  which,  if  not  free,  is  worse  than  use- 
less. 

The  Editor  docs  not  deny  that  by  possibility  such 
an  abuse  may  exist :  but,  prima  fronte,  there  is  no 
reason  to  presume  it.  The  House  of  Commons  is 
not,  by  its  complexion,  peculiarly  subject  to  the  dis- 
tempers of  an  independent  habit.  Very  little  com- 
pulsion is  necessary,  on  the  part  of  the  people,  to 
render  it  abundantly  complaisant  to  ministers  and 
favorites  of  all  descriptions.  It  required  a  great 
length  of  time,  very  considerable  industry  and  per- 
severance, no  vulgar  policy,  the  union  of  many  men 
and  many  tempers,  and  the  concurrence  of  events 
which  do  not  happen  every  day,  to  build  u])  an  inde- 
pendent House  of  Commons.  Its  demolition  was  ac- 
complished in  a  moment ;  and  it  was  the  work  of 
ordinary  hands.  But  to  construct  is  a  matter  of 
skill ;  to  demolish,  force  and  fury  are  sufficient. 

The  late  House  of  Commons  has  been  punished 
for  its  independence.  That  example  is  made.  Have 
we  an  example  on  record  of  a  House  of  Commons 
punished  for  its  servility  ?  The  rewards  of  a  sen- 
ate so  disposed  are  manifest  to  the  world.  Several 
gentlemen  are  very  desirous  of  altering  the  consti- 
tution of  the  House  of  Commons ;  but  they  must 
alter  the  frame  and  constitution  of  human  nature 
itself,  before  they  can  so  fashion  it,  hy  any  mode  of 
election,  that  its  conduct  will  not  be  influenced  by 
reward  and  punishment,  by  fame  and  by  disgrace. 
If  these  examples  take  root  in  the  minds  of  men, 


PREFACE.  541 

"what  members  licrcaftcr  \nl\  be  bold  enough  not  to 
be  corrupt,  especially  as  the  king's  highway  of  ob- 
sequiousness is  so  very  broad  and  easy  ?  To  make 
a  passive  member  of  Parliament,  no  dignity  of  mind, 
no  principles  of  honor,  no  resolution,  no  ability, 
no  industry,  no  learnhig,  no  experience,  are  in  the 
least  degree  necessary.  To  defend  a  post  of  im- 
portance against  a  powerful  enemy  requires  an  El- 
iot ;  a  drunken  invalid  is  qualified  to  hoist  a  white 
flag,  or  to  deliver  up  the  keys  of  the  fortress  on  his 
knees. 

The  gentlemen  chosen  into  this  Parliament,  for 
the  i)urposc  of  this  surrender,  were  bred  to  better 
things,  and  arc  no  doubt  qualified  for  other  service. 
But  for  this  strenuous  exertion  of  inactivity,  for  the 
vigorous  task  of  submission  and  passive  obedience,  all 
their  learning  and  ability  are  rather  a  matter  of  per- 
sonal ornament  to  themselves  than  of  the  least  use 
in  the  performance  of  their  duty. 

The  present  surrender,  therefore,  of  rights  and 
privileges  without  examination,  and  the  resolution 
to  sui)port  any  minister  given  by  the  secret  advisers 
of  the  crown,  determines  not  only  on  all  the  power 
and  authority  of  the  House,  but  it  settles  the  charac- 
ter and  description  of  the  men  who  arc  to  compose  it, 
and  perpetuates  that  character  as  long  as  it  may  be 
thought  expedient  to  keep  up  a  phantom  of  popular 
representation. 

It  is  for  the  chance  of  some  amendment  before  this 
new  settlement  takes  a  permanent  form,  and  while 
the  matter  is  yet  soft  and  ductile,  that  the  Editor  has 
republished  this  piece,  and  added  some  notes  and 
explanations  to  it.  His  intentions,  he  hopes,  will 
excuse  him  to  the  original  mover,  and  to  the  world. 


542  PREFACE. 

He  acts  from  a  strong  sense  of  the  incurable  ill  ef- 
fects of  holding  out  the  conduct  of  the  late  nouso 
of  Commons  as  an  example  to  be  shunned  by  future 
representatives  of  the  people. 


MOTION 


RELATIVE  TO 


THE    SPEECH    FROM    THE    THRONE. 


LUN^,  14°  DIE  JUNII,  1784. 

AMOTION  was  made,  That  a  representation  be 
presented  to  Ins  Majesty,  most  humbly  to  offer 
to  his  royal  consideration,  that  the  address  of  this 
House,  upon  his  Majesty's  speech  from  the  throne, 
was  dictated  solely  by  our  conviction  of  his  Majes- 
ty's own  most  gracious  intentions  towards  his  people, 
which,  as  we  feel  with  gratitude,  so  we  are  ever 
ready  to  acknowledge  with  cheerfulness  and  satis- 
faction. 

Impressed  with  these  sentiments,  we  were  willing 
to  separate  from  our  general  expressions  of  duty,  re- 
spect, and  veneration  to  his  Majesty's  royal  person 
and  his  princely  virtues  all  discussion  whatever  with 
relation  to  several  of  the  matters  suggested  and  sev- 
eral of  the  expressions  employed  in  that  speech. 

That  it  was  not  fit  or  becoming  that  any  decided 
opinion  should  be  formed  by  his  faithful  Commons  on 
that  speech,  without  a  degree  of  deliberation  adequate 
to  the  importance  of  the  object.  Having  afforded 
ourselves  due  time  for  that  deliberation,  we  do  now 
most  humbly  beg  leave  to  represent  to  his  Majesty, 
that,  in  the  speech  from  the  throne,  his  ministers 
have  thought  proper  to  use  a  language  of  a  very 
alarming  import,  unauthorized  by  the   practice  of 


544  MOTION   RELATIVE   TO    THE 

good  times,  and  irreconcilablo  to  the  principles  of 
tliis  government. 

Humbly  to  express  to  his  Majesty,  that  it  is  the 
privilege  and  duty  of  this  House  to  guard  the  Consti- 
tution from  all  infringement  on  the  part  of  ministers, 
and,  whenever  the  occasion  requires  it,  to  warn  them 
against"  any  abuse  of  the  authorities  committed  to 
them ;  but  it  is  very  lately,*  that,  in  a  manner  not 
more  unseemly  than  irregular  and  preposterous,  min- 
isters have  thought  proper,  by  admonition  from  the 
throne,  implying  distrust  and  reproach,  to  convey 
the  expectations  of  the  people  to  us,  their  sole  rep- 
resentatives, f  and  have  presumed  to  caution  us,  the 
natural  guardians  of  the  Constitution,  against  any 
infringement  of  it  on  our  parts. 

This  dangerous  innovation  we,  his  faithful  Com- 
mons, think  it  our  duty  to  mark  ;  and  as  these  admo- 
nitions from  the  throne,  by  their  frequent  repetition, 
seem  intended  to  lead  gradually  to  the  establishment 
of  an  usage,  we  hold  ourselves  bound  thus  solemnly 
to  protest  against  them. 

This  House  will  be,  as  it  ever  ought  to  be,  anx- 
iously attentive  to  the  inclinations  and  interests  of  its 
constituents ;  nor  do  we  desire  to  straiten  any  of  the 
avenues  to  the  throne,  or  to  either  House  of  Parlia- 
ment. But  the  ancient  order  in  which  the  rights  of 
the  people  have  been  exercised  is  not  a  restriction  of 
these  rights.     It  is  a  method  providently  framed  in 

*  Sec  King's  Speech,  Dec.  5,  1782,  and  May  19,  1784. 

\  "  I  shall  never  submit  to  the  doctrines  I  have  heard  this  day 
from  the  woolsack,  that  the  other  House  [  House  of  Commons] 
are  the  only  representatives  and  guardians  of  the  people's  rights.  I 
boldly  maintain  the  contrary,  I  say  this  House  [  House  of  Lords] 
is  equnlli/  the  representatives  of  the  people." — Lord  Shelburnc's  Speech, 
April  8,  1778,     Vide  Parliamentary  Register,  Vol.  X.  p.  392. 


SPEECH    FROM    THE   THRONE,  545 

favor  of  those  privileges  which  it  preserves  and  en- 
forces, by  keeping  in  that  conrse  wliich  has  been 
found  the  most  effectual  for  answering  their  ends. 
His  Majesty  may  receive  the  opinions  and  wishes  of 
individuals  under  their  signatures,  and  of  bodies  cor- 
porate under  their  seals,  as  expressing  their  own  par- 
ticular sense  ;  and  he  may  grant  such  redress  as  the 
legal  powers  of  the  crown  enable  the  crown  to  afford. 
This,  and  the  other  House  of  Parliament,  may  also 
receive  the  wishes  of  such  corporations  and  individu- 
als by  petition.  The  collective  sense  of  his  people 
his  Majesty  is  to  receive  from  his  Commons  in  Parlia- 
ment assembled.  It  would  destroy  the  whole  spirit 
of  the  Constitution,  if  his  Commons  were  to  receive 
that  sense  from  the  ministers  of  the  crown,  or  to  ad- 
init  them  to  be  a  proper  or  a  regular  channel  for 
conveying  it. 

That  the  ministers  in  the  said  speech  declare,  "  His 
Majesty  has  a  just  and  confident  reliance  that  we  (his 
faithful  Commons)  are  animated  with  the  same  sen- 
timents of  loyalty,  and  tlie  same  attachment  to  our 
excellent  Constitution  Avhich  he  had  the  happiness  to 
sec  so  fully  manifested  in  every  part  of  the  kingdom." 

To  represent,  that  his  faithful  Commons  have  never 
failed  in  loyalty  to  his  ]\rajcsty.  It  is  new  to  them 
to  be  reminded  of  it.  It  is  unnecessary  and  invidi- 
ous to  press  it  upon  them  by  any  example.  This 
recommendation  of  loyalty,  after  his  Majesty  has  sat 
for  so  many  years,  with  tlie  full  support  of  all  descrip- 
tions of  his  subjects,  on  the  throne  of  this  kingdom, 
at  a  time  of  profound  peace,  and  without  any  pre- 
tence of  the  existence  or  apprehension  of  war  or  con- 
spiracy, becomes  in  itself  a  source  of  no  small  jealousy 
to  his  faithful  Commons  ;  as  many  circumstances  lead 

VOL.  II.  35 


546  MOTION   RELATIVE   TO    THE     . 

US  to  apprelieud  that  therein  the  ministers  have  refer- 
ence to  some  other  measures  and  principles  of  loyal- 
ty, and  to  some  other  ideas  of  the  Constitution,  than 
the  laws  require,  or  the  practice  of  Parliament  will 
admit. 

No  regular  communication  of  the  proofs  of  loyalty 
and  attachment  to  the  Constitution,  alluded  to  in  the 
speech  from  the  throne,  have  been  laid  before  this 
House,  in  order  to  enable  us  to  judge  of  the  nature, 
tendency,  or  occasion  of  them,  or  in  what  particular 
acts  they  were  displayed  ;  but  if  we  are  to  suppose 
the  manifestations  of  loyalty  (which  are  held  out  to 
us  as  an  example  for  imitation)  consist  in  certain  ad- 
dresses delivered  to  his  Majesty,  promising  support  to 
his  Majesty  in  the  exercise  of  his  prerogative,  and 
thanking  his  Majesty  for  removing  certain  of  his  min- 
isters, on  account  of  the  votes  they  have  given  upon 
bills  depending  in  Parliament,  —  if  this  be  the  ex- 
ample of  loyalty  alluded  to  in  the  speech  from  the 
throne,  then  we  must  beg  leave  to  express  our  seri- 
ous concern  for  the  impression  which  has  been  made 
on  any  of  our  fellow-subjects  by  misrepresentations 
which  have  seduced  them  into  a  seeming  approbation 
of  proceedings  subversive  of  their  own  freedom.  We 
conceive  that  the  opinions  delivered  in  these  papers 
were  not  well  considered  ;  nor  were  the  parties  duly 
informed  of  the  nature  of  the  matters  on  which  they 
were  called  to  determine,  nor  of  those  proceedings  of 
Parliament  which  they  were  led  to  censure. 

We  shall  act  more  advisedly.  —  The  loyalty  we 
shall  manifest  will  not  be  the  same  with  theirs  ;  but, 
we  trust,  it  will  be  equally  sincere,  and  more  enlight- 
ened. It  is  no  slight  authority  which  shall  persuade 
us  (by  receiving  as  proofs  of  loyalty  the  mistaken 


SPEECH   FROM   THE   THRONE.  547 

principles  lightly  taken  up  in  these  addresses)  ob- 
liquely to  criminate,  with  tlie  heavy  and  ungrounded 
charge  of  disloyalty  and  disaffection,  an  uncorrupt, 
independent,  and  reforming  Parliament.*  xibovo 
all,  we  shall  take  care  that  none  of  the  rights  and 
privileges,  always  claimed,  and  since  the  accession  of 
his  Majesty's  illustrious  family  constantly  exercised 
by  this  House,  (and  which  we  hold  and  exercise  in 
trust  for  the  Commons  of  Great  Britain,  and  for  their 
benefit,)  shall  be  constructively  surrendered,  or  even 
weakened  and  impaired,  under  ambiguous  phrases 
and  implications  of  censure  on  the  late  Parliamentary 
proceedings.  If  these  claims  are  not  well  founded, 
they  ought  to  be  honestly  abandoned  ;  if  they  are 
just,  they  ought  to  be  steadily  and  resolutely  main- 
tained. 

Of  his  Majesty's  own  gracious  disposition  towards 
the  true  principles  of  our  free  Constitution  his  faith- 

*  In  that  Parliament  the  House  of  Commons  by  two  several  res- 
olutions put  an  end  to  the  American  war.  Immediately  on  the 
change  of  ministry  which  ensued,  in  order  to  secure  their  own  inde- 
pendence, and  to  prevent  the  accumulation  of  new  burdens  on  tlie 
people  by  the  growth  of  a  civil  list  debt,  they  passed  the  Establish- 
ment Bill.  By  that  bill  thirty-six  offices  tenable  by  members  of  Par- 
liament were  suppressed,  and  an  order  of  pav-ment  was  framed  by 
which  the  growth  of  any  fresh  debt  was  rendered  impracticable.  The 
debt  on  the  civil  list  from  the  beginning  of  tiic  present  reign  had 
amounted  to  one  million  three  hundred  thousand  pounds  and  upwards. 
Another  act  was  passed  for  regulating  the  oflice  of  the  Paymaster- 
General  and  the  offices  subordinate  to  it.  A  million  of  ])ublic  money 
had  sometimes  been  in  the  hands  of  the  paymasters  :  tiiis  act  prevented 
the  possibility  of  any  money  whatsoever  being  accumulated  in  that  of- 
fice in  future.  The  offices  of  the  Exchequer,  whose  emoluments  in  time 
of  war  were  excessive,  and  grew  in  exact  proportion  to  the  public  bur- 
dsns,  were  regulated,  — .some  of  them  suppressed,  and  the  rest  reduced 
to  fixed  salaries.  To  secure  the  freedom  of  election  against  the  crown, 
a  bill  was  passed  to  disciualify  all  olHcers  concerned  in  the  coUcctioa 


548  MOTION    EELATIVE   TO    THE 

ful  Commons  never  did  or  could  entertain  a  donbt ; 
but  we  humbly  beg  leave  to  express  to  his  Majesty 
our  uneasiness  concerning  other  new  and  unusual 
expressions  of  his  ministers,  declaratory  of  a  resolu- 
tion "  to  support  in  their  jmt  halance  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  every  branch  of  the  legislature." 

It  were  desirable  that  all  hazardous  theories  con- 
cerning a  balance  of  rights  and  privileges  (a  mode  of 
expression  wholly  foreign  to  Parliamentary  usage) 
might  have  been  forborne.  His  Majesty's  faithful 
Commons  are  well  instructed  in  their  own  rights  and 
privileges,  which  they  are  determined  to  maintain  on 
the  footing  upon  which  they  were  handed  down  from 
their  ancestors  ;  they  arc  not  unacquauitcd  with  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  the  House  of  Peers;  and 
they  know  and  respect  tlie  lawful  prerogatives  of  the 
crown:  but  they  do  not  think  it  safe  to  admit  any- 
thing concernuig  the  existence  of  a  balance  of  those 

of  the  revenue  in  any  of  its  branches  from  voting  in  elections  :  a  most 
important  act,  not  only  with  regard  to  its  primary  object,  the  freedom 
of  election,  but  as  materially  forwarding  the  due  collection  of  revenue. 
For  the  same  end,  (the  preserving  the  freedom  of  election,)  the  House 
rescinded  the  famous  judgment  relative  to  the  Middlesex  election,  and 
expunged  it  iVom  the  journals.  Ou  the  principle  of  reformation  of 
their  own  House,  connected  with  a  principle  of  public  economy,  an  act 
passed  for  rendering  contractors  with  government  incapable  of  a  seat 
in  Parliament.  The  India  Bill  (unfortunately  lost  in  the  House  of 
Lords)  pursued  the  same  idea  to  its  completion,  and  disabled  all  ser- 
vants of  the  East  India  Company  from  a  seat  in  that  House  for  a  cer- 
tain time,  and  until  their  conduct  was  examined  into  and  cleared.  The 
remedy  of  infinite  corruptions  and  of  infinite  disorders  and  oppres- 
sions, as  well  as  the  security  of  the  most  important  objects  of  public 
economy,  perished  with  that  bill  and  that  Parliament.  That  Parlia- 
ment also  instituted  a  committee  to  inquire  into  the  collection  of  the 
revenue  in  all  its  branches,  which  prosecuted  its  duty  with  great 
vigor,  and  suggested  several  material  improvements. 


SPEECH    FROM    THE    THRONE  549 

rights,  privileges,  and  prerogatives  ;  nor  arc  they  able 
to  discern  to  what  objects  ministers  would  apply  their 
fiction  of  a  balance,  nor  what  they  would  consider 
as  a  just  one.  These  unauthorized  doctrines  have  a 
tendency  to  stir  improper  discussions,  and  to  lead  to 
miscliievous  innovations  in  the  Constitution.* 

*  If  these  speculations  arc  let  loose,  the  House  of  Lords  may  quar- 
rel witli  their  share  of  the  Icfrislature,  as  being  limited  with  rcj;;ard  to 
the  oriyinatioa  of  grants  to  the  crown  and  the  origination  of  money 
bills.  The  advisers  of  the  crown  may  think  proper  to  bring  its  neg- 
ative into  ordinary  use,  —  and  even  to  dispute,  whether  a  mere  nega- 
tive, compared  with  the  deliberative  power  exercised  in  the  other 
Houses,  be  such  a  share  in  the  legislature  as  to  produce  a  due  balance 
in  favor  of  that  branch,  and  thus  justify  the  previous  interference  of 
the  crown  in  the  manner  lately  used.  The  following  will  serve  to 
show  how  much  foundation  there  is  for  great  caution  concerning 
these  novel  speculations.  Lord  Shelburnc,  in  his  celebrated  speech, 
April  8lh,  1778,  expresses  himself  as  follows.  (Vide  Parliamentary 
Register,  Vol.  X.) 

"  The  noble  and  learned  lord  on  the  woolsack,  in  the  debate  which 
opened  the  business  of  this  day,  asserted  that  your  Lordships  were  in- 
competent to  make  any  alteration  in  a  money  bill  or  a  bill  of  supply. 
I  should  be  glad  to  see  the  matter  Atirly  and  fully  discussed,  and 
the  subject  brought  forward  and  argued  upon  precedent,  as  well  as 
all  its  collateral  relations.  I  should  be  pleased  to  see  the  question 
fairly  committed,  were  it  for  no  other  reason  but  to  hear  the  sleek, 
smooth  contractors  from  the  other  House  come  to  tliis  bar  and  de- 
clare, that  they,  and  they  only,  could  frame  a  monpy  hill,  and  they, 
and  they  onli/,  could  dispose  of  the  propertij  of  the  peers  of  Great  Brit- 
aim.  Perhaps  some  arguments  more  plausible  than  those  I  heard 
this  day  from  the  woolsack,  to  show  that  the  Commons  have  an  un- 
controllable, unqualilied  right  to  bind  your  Lordshijjs'  projierty,  may 
be  urged  by  them.  At  present,  I  beg  leave  to  differ  from  the  noblo 
and  learned  lord ;  for,  until  the  claim,  after  a  solemn  discussion  of 
this  House,  is  oijcnly  and  directly  rclimiuishcd,  I  shall  continue  to  bo 
of  opinion  tliat  your  Lordships  liave  a  right  to  alter,  amemi,  or  reject 
a  money  billf 

The  Duke  of  Richmond  also,  in  his  letter  to  the  volunteers  of 
Ireland,  speaks  of  several  of  the*  powers  exercised  by  the  House  of 


550  MOTION    RELATIVE    TO    THE 

That  his  faithful  Commons  most  humbly  recom- 
mend, instead  of  the  inconsiderate  speculations  of 
unexperienced  men,  that,  on  all  occasions,  resort 
should  be  had  to  the  happy  practice  of  Parliament, 
and  to  those  solid  maxims  of  government  which  have 
prevailed  since  the  accession  of  his  Majesty's  illustri- 
ous family,  as  furnishing  the  only  safe  principles  on 
which  the  crown  and  Parliament  can  proceed. 

We  think  it  the  more  necessary  to  be  cautious 
on  this  head,  as,  in  the  last  Parliament,  the  present 
ministers  had  thought  proper  to  countenance,  if  not 
to  suggest,  an  attack  upon  the  most  clear  and  un- 
doubted rights  and  privileges  of  this  House.* 

Commons  in  the  light  of  usurpations ;  and  his  Grace  is  of  opinion, 
that,  when  the  people  arc  restored  to  what  he  conceives  to  be  their 
rights,  in  electing  the  House  of  Commons,  the  other  branches  of  the 
legislature  ought  to  be  restored  to  theirs.  —  Vide  Remembrancer,  Vol. 
XVI. 

*  By  an  act  of  Parliament,  the  Directors  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany are  restrained  from  acceptance  Of  bills  drawn  from  India,  beyond 
a  certain  amount,  without  the  consent  of  the  Commissioners  of  the 
Treasury.  The  late  House  of  Commons,  finding  bills  to  an  immense 
amount  drawn  upon  that  body  by  their  servants  abroad,  and  know- 
ing tlieir  circumstances  to  be  exceedingly  doubtful,  came  to  a  resolu- 
tion providently  cautioning  the  Lords  of  the  Treasury  against  the 
acceptance  of  these  bills,  until  the  House  should  otherwise  direct. 
The  Court  Lords  then  took  occasion  to  declare  against  the  resolution 
as  illegal,  by  the  Commons  undertaking  to  direct  in  the  execution  of 
a  trust  created  by  act  of  Parliament.  The  House,  justly  alarmed  at 
this  resolution,  which  went  to  the  destruction  of  the  whole  of  its  super- 
intending capacity,  and  particularly  in  matters  relative  to  its  own  prov- 
ince of  money,  directed  a  committee  to  search  the  journals,  and  they 
found  a  regular  series  of  precedents,  commencing  from  the  remotest 
of  those  records,  and  carried  on  to  that  day,  by  which  it  appeared 
that  the  House  interfered,  by  an  autlioritative  advice  and  admoni- 
tion, upon  every  act  of  executive  government  withoht  exception, 
and  in  many  much  stronger  cases  than  that  which  the  Lords  thought 
jn-oper  to  quarrel  with. 


SPEECH    FROM    THE    THRONE.  551 

t 

Fearing,  from  these  extraordinary  admonitions,  and 
from  the  new  doctrines,  which  seem  to  have  dictated 
several  unusual  expressions,  that  his  Majesty  has 
been  abused  by  Mse  representations  of  the  late  pro- 
ceedings in  Parliament,  we  think  it  our  duty  respect- 
fully to  inform  his  Majesty,  that  no  attempt  whatever 
has  been  made  against  his  lawful  prerogatives,  or 
against  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  Peers,  by  the 
late  House  of  Commons,  in  any  of  their  addresses, 
votes,  or  resolutions ;  neither  do  we  know  of  any 
proceeding  by  bill,  hi  which  it  was  proposed  to 
abridge  the  extent  of  his  royal  prerogative :  but,  if 
such  provision  had  existed  in  any  bill,  we  protest, 
and  we  declare,  against  all  speeches,  acts,  or  ad- 
dresses, from  any  persons  whatsoever,  which  have  a 
tendency  to  consider  such  bills,  or  the  persons  con 
cerned  in  them,  ks  just  objects  of  any  kind  of  cen- 
sure and  punishment  from  the  throne.  Necessary 
reformations  gaiay  hereafter  require,  as  they  have  fre- 
quently done  in  former  times,  limitations  and  abridg- 
ments, and  in  some  cases  an  entire  extinction,  of 
some  branch  of  prerogative.  If  bills  should  be  im- 
proper in  the  form  in  which  they  appear  in  the 
House  where  they  originate,  they  are  liable,  by  the 
wisdom  of  this  Constitution,  to  be  corrected,  and  even 
to  be  totally  set  aside,  elsewhere.  This  is  the  known, 
the  legal,  and  the  safe  remedy ;  but  whatever,  by  the 
manifestation  of  the  royal  displeasure,  tends  to  intim- 
idate individual  members  from  proposing,  or  this 
House  from  receiving,  debating,  and  passing  bills, 
tends  to  prevent  even  the  beginning  of  every  reforma- 
tion in  the  state,  and  utterly  destroys  the  deliberative 
capacity  of  Parliament.  We  therefore  claim,  de- 
mand, and  insist  upon  it,  as  our  undoubted  right, 


552  MOTION   RELATIVE   TO    THE 

« 

that  iio  persons  shall  be  doomed  proper  objects  of 
animadversion  by  the  crown,  in  any  mode  whatever, 
for  the  votes  which  they  give  or  the  propositions 
which  tlioy  make  in  Parliament. 

Wo  hnmbly  conceive,  that  besides  its  share  of  the 
legislative  power,  and  its  right  of  impoaehmcnt,  that, 
by  the  law  and  usage  of  Parliament,  this  House  has 
other  powers  and  capacities,  which  it  is  bound  to 
maintain.  This  House  is  assured  that  our  humble 
advice  on  the  exercise  of  prerogative  will  be  hoard 
with  the  same  attention  with  which  it  has  ever  been 
regarded,  and  that  it  will  be  followed  by  the  same 
effects  which  it  has  ever  produced,  during  the  happy 
and  glorious  reigns  of  his  Majesty's  royal  progenitors, 
—  not  doubting  but  that,  in  all  those  points,  we  shall 
be  considered  as  a  council  of  wisdom  and  weight  to 
advise,  and  not  merely  as  an  accuser  of  competence  to 
criminate.*  This  House  claims  both  capacities  ;  and 
we  trust  that  we  shall  be  left  to  our  free  discretion 
which  of  them  we  shall  employ  as  best  calculated  for 
his  Majesty's  and  the  national  service.  Whenever  we 
shall  see  it  expedient  to  offer  our  advice  concerning 
his  Majesty's  servants,  who  are  those  of  the  public, 
we  confidently  hope  that  the  personal  favor  of  any 
minister,  or  any  set  of  ministers,  will  not  be  more 
dear  to  his  Majesty  than  the  credit  and  character  of 
a  Hoiise  of  Commons.  It  is  an  experiment  full  of 
peril  to  put  the  representative  wisdom  and  justice  of 
his  Majesty's  people  hi  tlie  wrong;  it  is  a  crooked 
and  desperate  design,  leading  to  mischief,  the  extent 

*  "  I  observe,  at  the  same  time,  that  there  is  no  charge  or  complaint 
suggested  against  my  present  ministers."  —  The  King's  Answer,  25th 
February,  1784,  to  the  Address  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Vide 
Resolutions  of  the  House  of  Commons,  printed  for  Dcbrctt,  p.  31. 


SPEECH    FROM    THE    THRONE.  553 

ot  wliicli  no  human  wisdom  can  foresee,  to  attempt  to 
form  a  prerogative  party  in  the  nation,  to  be  resorted 
to  as  occasion  shall  require,  in  derogation  from  the 
authority  of  the  Commons  of  Great  Britain  in  Parlia- 
ment assembled  ;  it  is  a  contrivance  full  of  danger, 
for  ministers  to  set  up  the  representative  and  constit- 
uent bodies  of  the  Commons  of  this  kingdom  as  two 
separate  and  distinct  powers,  formed  to  counterpoise 
each  other,  leaving  the  preference  in  the  hands  of 
secret  advisers  of  the  crown.  In  such  a  situation  of 
things,  these  advisers,  taking  advantage  of  the  differ- 
ences which  may  accidentally  arise  or  may  purpose- 
ly he  fomented  between  them,  will  have  it  in  tlicir 
choice  to  resort  to  the  one  or  the  other,  as  may  best 
suit  the  purposes  of  their  sinister  ambition.  By 
exciting  an  emulation  and  contest  between  the  rep- 
resentative and  the  constituent  bodies,  as  parties 
contending  for  credit  and  influence  at  the  throne, 
sacrifices  will  be  made  by  both ;  and  the  whole  can 
end  in  nothing  else  than  the  destruction  of  the  dear- 
est rights  and  liberties  of  the  nation.  If  there  must 
be  another  mode  of  conveying  the  collective  sense  of 
the  people  to  the  throne  than  that  by  the  House  of 
Commons,  it  ought  to  be  fixed  and  defined,  and  its 
authority  ought  to  be  settled  :  it  ought  not  to  exist 
in  so  precarious  and  dependent  a  state  as  that  minis- 
ters should  have  it  in  their  power,  at  their  own  mere 
pleasure,  to  acknowledge  it  with  respect  or  to  reject 
it  with  scorn. 

It  is  the  undoubted  prerogative  of  the  crown  to 
dissolve  Parliament ;  but  we  beg  leave  to  lay  before 
his  Majesty,  that  it  is,  of  all  tlio  trusts  vested  in  his 
Majesty,  the  most  critical  and  delicate,  and  that  ia 
which  this  House  has  the  most  reason  to  require,  not 


554  MOTION  RELATIVE  TO  THE 

only  tlie  good  faith,  but  the  favor  of  the  crown.  His 
Commons  are  not  always  upon  a  par  with  his  minis- 
ters in  an  application  to  popular  judgment ;  it  is  not 
in  the  power  of  the  members  of  this  House  to  go  to 
their  election  at  the  moment  the  most  favorable  for 
them.  It  is  in  the  power  of  the  crown  to  choose  a 
time  for  their  dissolution  whilst  great  and  arduous 
matters  of  state  and  legislation  are  depending,  which 
may  be  easily  misunderstood,  and  which  cannot  be 
fully  explained  before  that  misunderstanding  may 
prove  fatal  to  the  honor  that  belongs  and  to  the  con- 
sideration that  is  due  to  members  of  Parliament. 

"With  his  Majesty  is  the  gift  of  all  the  rewards,  the 
honors,  distinctions,  favors,  and  graces  of  the  state ; 
with  his  Majesty  is  the  mitigation  of  all  the  rigors  of 
the  law :  and  we  rejoice  to  see  the  crown  possessed 
of  trusts  calculated  to  obtain  good-will,  and  charged 
with  duties  which  are  popular  and  pleasing.  Our 
trusts  are  of  a  different  kind.  Our  duties  are  harsh 
and  invidious  in  their  nature  ;  and  justice  and  safety 
is  all  we  can  expect  in  the  exercise  of  them.  "We 
are  to  offer  salutary,  which  is  not  always  pleasing 
counsel :  we  are  to  inquire  and  to  accuse  ;  and  the 
objects  of  our  inquiry  and  charge  will  be  for  the 
most  part  persons  of  wealth,  power,  and  extensive 
connections :  we  are  to  make  rigid  laws  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  revenue,  which  of  necessity  more  or  less 
confine  some  action  or  restrain  some  function  which 
before  was  free :  what  is  the  most  critical  and  invid- 
ious of  all,  the  whole  body  of  the  public  impositions 
originate  from  us,  and  the  hand  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons is  seen  and  felt  in  every  burden  that  presses 
on  the  people.  "Whilst  ultimately  we  are  serving 
tliem,  and  in  the  first  instance  whilst  we  are  serving 


SPEECH    FROM    THE    THRONE.  555 

his  Majesty,  it  will  be  hard  indeed,  if  we  should  see 
a  House  of  Commons  the  victim  of  its  zeal  and  fideli- 
ty, sacrificed  by  his  ministers  to  those  very  popular 
discontents  which  shall  be  excited  by  our  dutifnl  en- 
deavors for  the  security  and  greatness  of  his  throne. 
No  other  consequence  can  result  from  such  an  exam- 
ple, but  that,  in  future,  the  House  of  Commons,  con- 
sulting its  safety  at  the  expense  of  its  duties,  ajid 
suffering  the  whole  energy  of  the  state  to  be  relaxed, 
will  shrink  from  every  service  which,  however  neces- 
sary, is  of  a  great  and  arduous  nature,  —  or  that,  will- 
ing to  provide  for  the  public  necessities,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  secure  the  moans  of  performing  that 
task,  they  will  exchange  independence  for  protection, 
and  will  court  a  siTbservient  existence  through  the 
favor  of  those  ministers  of  state  or  those  secret  ad- 
visers who  ought  themselves  to  gtand  in  awe  of  the 
Commons  of  tliis  realm. 

A  House  of  Commons  respected  by  his  ministers  is 
essential  to  his  Majesty's  service :  it  is  fit  that  they 
should  vield  to  Parliament,  and  not  that  Parliament 
should  be  new-modelled  until  it  is  fitted  to  their  pur- 
poses. If  our  authority  is  only  to  be  held  up  when 
we  coincide  in  opinion  with  his  Majesty's  advisers, 
but  is  to  be  set  at  nought  the  moment  it  differs  from 
them,  the  House  of  Commons  will  sink  into  a  mere 
appendage  of  administration,  and  will  lose  that  inde- 
pendent character  which,  inseparably  connecting  the 
honor  and  reputation  with  the  acts  of  this  House,  en- 
ables us  to  afford  a  real,  effective,  and  substantial  sup- 
port to  his  government.  It  is  tlie  deference  shown  to 
our  opinion,  when  we  dissent  from  the  servants  of  the 
crown,  which  alone  can  give  authority  to  the  pro- 
ceedings of  this  House,  when  it  concurs  with  their 
measures. 


556  MOTION    RELATIVE   TO    THE 

That  authority  once  lost,  the  credit  of  his  Majes- 
ty's crown  will  be  impaired  in  the  eyes  of  all  nations. 
Foreign  powers,  wlio  may  yet  wish  to  revive  a  friendly 
intercourse  with  this  nation,  will  look  in  vain  for  tliat 
hold  which  gave  a  connection  with  Great  Britain  the 
preference  to  an  alliance  with  any  otlier  state.  A 
House  of  Commons  of  which  ministers  were  known 
to  stand  in  awe,  where  everything  Avas  necessarily 
discussed  on  principles  fit  to  be  openly  and  publicly 
avowed,  and  which  could  not  be  retracted  or  varied 
without  danger,  furnished  a  ground  of  confidence  in 
the  public  faith  which  the  engagement  of  no  state 
dependent  on  the  fluctuation  of  personal  favor  and 
private  advice  can  ever  pretend  to.  If  fiiith  with 
the  House  of  Commons,  the  grand  security  for  the 
national  faith  itself,  can  be  broken  with  impunity,  a 
wound  is  given  to  the  political  importance  of  Great 
Britain  which  will  not  easily  be  healed. 

That  there  was  a  great  variance  between  the  late 
House  of  Commons  and  certain  persons,  Avhom  his 
Majesty  has  been  advised  to  make  and  continue  as 
ministers,  in  defiance  of  the  advice  of  that  House,  is 
notorious  to  the  world.  That  House  did  not  confide 
in  those  ministers;  and  they  Avithheld  their  confi- 
dence from  them  for  reasons  for  which  posterity  will 
honor  and  respect  the  names  of  those  who  composed 
that  House  of  Commons,  distinguished  for  its  inde- 
pendence. They  could  not  confide  in  persons  who 
have  shown  a  disposition  to  dark  and  dangerous 
intrigues.  By  these  intrigues  they  have  Aveakcned, 
if  not  destroyed,  the  clear  assurance  which  his  Majes- 
ty's people,  and  which  all  nations,  ought  to  have  of 
what  are  and  what  are  not  the  real  acts  of  his  gov- 
ernment. 


SPEECH    FROM    THE    THRONE.  557 

If  it  should  be  seen  that  his  ministers  may  con- 
tinue in  their  offices  witliout  any  signification  to 
tlieni  of  liis  Majesty's  displeasure  at  any  of  their 
measures,  whilst  persons  considerable  for  their  rank, 
and  known  to  have  had  access  to  his  Majesty's  sacred 
person,  can  witli  impunity  abuse  that  advantage,  and 
employ  his  Majesty's  name  to  disavow  and  counter- 
act the  proceedings  of  his  official  servants,  nothing 
but  distrust,  discord,  debility,  contempt  of  all  au- 
thority, and  general  confusion,  can  prevail  in  his  gov- 
ernment. 

Tliis  we  lay  before  his  Majesty,  with  humility  and 
concern,  as  the  inevitable  effect  of  a  spirit  of  intrigue 
in  liis  executive  government :  an  evil  wliich  we  have 
but  too  much  reason  to  be  persuaded  exists  and  in- 
creases. Durhig  the  course  of  the  last  session  it 
broke  out  in  a  manner  tlie  most  alarming.  Tliis  evil 
was  infinitely  aggravated  by  the  unautliorized,  but 
not  disavowed,  use  which  has  been  made  of  his  Maj- 
esty's name,  for  the  purpose  of  the  most  unconsti- 
tutional, corrupt,  and  dislionorable  influence  on  the 
minds  of  the  members  of  Parliament  that  ever  was 
practised  in  this  kingdom.  No  attention  even  to 
exterior  decorum,  in  the  practice  of  corruption  and 
intimidation  employed  on  peers,  was  observed :  sev- 
eral peers  were  obliged  under  menaces  to  retract 
their  declarations  and  to  recall  their  proxies. 

The  Commons  have  the  deepest  interest  in  the 
purity  and  integrity  of  the  Peerage.  The  Peers  dis- 
pose of  all  the  property  in  the  kingdom,  in  the  last 
resort ;  and  tliey  dispose  of  it  on  their  honor,  and  not 
on  their  oaths,  as  all  the  members  of  every  other 
tribunal  in  the  kingdom  must  do,  —  thougli  in  them 
the  proceeding  is  not  conclusive.     We  have,  there- 


558  MOTION   EEL  ATI  VE   TO   THE 

fore,  a  right  to  demand  that  no  application  shall  be 
made  to  peers  of  such  a  nature  as  may  give  room  to 
call  in  question,  much  less  to  attaint,  our  sole  secu- 
rity for  all  that  we  possess.  This  corrupt  proceed- 
ing appeared  to  the  House  of  Commons,  who  are 
the  natural  guardians  of  the  purity  of  Parliament, 
and  of  the  purity  of  every  branch  of  judicature,  a 
most  reprehensible  and  dangerous  practice,  tending 
to  shake  the  very  foundation  of  the  authority  of  the 
House  of  Peers  ;  and  they  branded  it  as  such  by  their 
resolution. 

The  House  had  not  sufficient  evidence  to  enable 
them  legally  to  punish  this  practice,  but  they  had 
enough  to  caution  them  against  all  confidence  in  the 
authors  and  abettors  of  it.  They  performed  their 
duty  in  humbly  advising  his  Majesty  against  the  em- 
ployment of  such  ministers ;  but  his  Majesty  was 
advised  to  keep  those  ministers,  and  to  dissolve  that 
Parliament.  The  House,  aware  of  the  importance 
and  urgency  of  its  duty  with  regard  to  the  British 
interests  in  India,  which  were  and  are  in  the  utmost 
disorder,  and  in  the  utmost  peril,  most  humbly  re- 
quested his  Majesty  not  to  dissolve  the  Parliament 
during  the  course  of  their  very  critical  proceedings 
on  that  subject.  His  Majesty's  gracious  condescen- 
sion to  that  request  was  conveyed  in  the  royal  faith, 
pledged  to  a  House  of  Parliament,  and  solemnly 
delivered  from  the  throne.  It  was  but  a  very  few 
days  after  a  committee  had  been,  with  the  consent 
and  concurrence  of  the  Chancellor  of  the  Excheq- 
uer, appointed  for  an  inquiry  into  certain  accounts 
delivered  to  the  House  by  the  Court  of  Directors, 
and  then  actually  engaged  in  that  inquiry,  that  the 
ministers,  regardless  of  the  assurance  given  from  the 


SPEECH   FROM   THE  THRONE.  559 

crown  to  a  House  of  Commons,  did  dissolve  that 
Parliament.  We  most  humbly  submit  to  his  Maj- 
esty's consideration  the  consequences  of  this  their 
breach  of  public  faith. 

Whilst  the  members  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
under  that  security,  were  engaged  in  his  Majesty's 
and  the  national  business,  endeavors  were  industri- 
ously used  to  calumniate  those  whom  it  was  found 
impracticable  to  corrupt.  The  reputation  of  the 
members,  and  the  reputation  of  the  House  itself, 
was  undermined  in  every  part  of  the  kingdom. 

In  the  speech  from  the  throne  relative  to  India,  we 
are  cautioned  by  the  ministers  "  not  to  lose  sight  of 
the  effect  any  measure  may  have  on  the  Constitution 
of  our  country."  We  are  apprehensive  that  a  ca- 
lumnious report,  spread  abroad,  of  an  attack  upon  his 
Majesty's  prerogative  by  the  late  House  of  Commons, 
may  have  made  an  impression  on  his  royal  mind,  and 
have  given  occasion  to  this  unusual  admonition  to  the 
present.  This  attack  is  charged  to  have  been  made 
in  the  late  Parliament  by  a  bill  which  passed  the 
House  of  Commons,  in  tlie  late  session  of  that  Parlia- 
ment, for  the  regulation  of  the  affairs,  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  commerce,  and  for  the  amendment  of 
the  government  of  this  nation,  in  the  East  Indies. 

That  his  Majesty  and  his  people  may  have  an  op- 
portunity of  entering  into  the  ground  of  this  inju- 
rious charge,  we  beg  leave  humbly  to  acquaint  his 
Majesty,  that,  far  from  having  made  any  infringe- 
ment whatsoever  on  any  part  of  his  royal  prerogative, 
that  bill  did,  for  a  limited  time,  give  to  his  Majesty 
certain  powers  never  before  possessed  by  the  crown  ; 
and  for  this  his  present  ministers  (who,  rather  than 
fall  short  in  the  number  of  tlieir  calumnies,  employ 


5G0  MOTION    RELATIVE    TO    THE 

some  that  arc  contradictory)  have  slandered  this 
House,  as  aiming  at  the  extension  of  an  unconsti- 
tutional influence  in  his  Majesty's  crown.  This  pre- 
tended attempt  to  increase  tlie  influence  of  the  crown 
they  were  weak  enougli  to  endeavor  to  persuade  his 
Majesty's  people  was  amongst  the  causes  which  ex- 
cited his  Majesty's  resentment  against  his  late  min- 
isters. 

Further,  to  remove  the  impressions  of  this  calum- 
ny concerning  an  attempt  in  the  House  of  Commons 
against  his  prerogative,  it  is  proper  to  inform  his  Maj- 
esty, that  the  territorial  possessions  in  the  East  Indies 
never  have  been  declared  by  any  public  judgment, 
act,  or  instrument,  or  any  resolution  of  Parliament 
whatsoever,  to  be  the  subject  matter  of  his  Majesty's 
prerogative ;  nor  have  tliey  ever  been  understood  as 
belonging  to  his  ordinary  administration,  or  to  be 
annexed  or  united  to  his  crown ;  but  that  they  are 
acquisitions  of  a  new  and  peculiar  descrijition,*  un- 
known to  the  ancient  executive  constitution  of  this 
country. 

From  time  to  time,  therefore.  Parliament  provided 
for  their  government  according  to  its  discretion,  and 
to  its  opinion  of  what  was  required  by  the  public  ne- 

*  The  territorial  possessions  in  the  East  Indies  were  ai-quircd  to 
the  Company,  in  virtue  of  grants  from  the  Great  Mogul,  in  the  nature 
of  offices  and  jurisdictions,  to  bo  licld  under  him,  and  dependent  upon 
/</s  crown,  with  the  express  condition  of  being  ol)cdicnt  to  orders  from 
his  court,  and  of  paying  an  annual  tribute  to  Ids  treasury.  It  is  true 
that  no  obedience  is  yiekled  to  these  orders,  and  for  some  time  past 
there  has  been  no  payment  made  of  this  tribute.  But  it  is  under  a 
grant  so  conditioned  that  they  still  hold.  To  subject  the  King  of 
Great  Britain  as  tributary  to  a  foreign  power  by  the  acts  of  h\i  sub- 
jects;  to  suppose  the  grant  valid,  and  yet  the  condition  void;  to 
suppose  it  good  for  the  king,  and  insufficient  for  the  Company ;  to 
Bupposc  it  an  interest  divisible  between  the  parties  :  these  arc  some 


SPEECH    FROM   THE   THRONE.  661 

cessities.  We  do  not  know  that  his  Majesty  was  enti- 
tled, by  prerogative,  to  exercise  any  act  of  anthority 
wliatsoever  in  the  Company's  affairs,  or  that,  in  effect, 
such  authority  has  ever  been  exercised.  His  Majes- 
ty's patronage  was  not  taken  away  by  that  bill ;  be- 
cause it  is  notorious  that  his  Majesty  never  originally 
had  the  appointment  of  a  single  officer,  civil  or  mili- 
tary, in  the  Company's  establislnnent  in  India :  nor 
has  the  least  degree  of  patronage  ever  been  acquired 
to  the  crown  in  any  other  manner  or  measure  than 
as  the  power  was  thought  expedient  to  be  granted  by 
act  of  Parliament,  —  that  is,  by  the  very  same  authori- 
ty by  which  the  offices  were  disposed  of  and  regulated 
in  the  bill  which  his  Majesty's  servants  have  falsely 
and  injuriously  represented  as  infringing  upon  the 
prerogative  of  tlie  crown. 

Before  the  year  1773  the  whole  administration  of 
India,  and  the  whole  patronage  to  office  there,  was  in 
the  hands  of  the  East  India  Company.  The  East  In- 
dia Company  is  not  a  branch  of  his  Majesty's  prerog- 
ative administration,  nor  does  that  body  exercise  any 
species  of  authority  under  it,  nor  indeed  from  any 
British  title  that  does  not  derive  all  its  legal  validity 
from  acts  of  Parliament. 

few  of  the  many  legal  difficulties  to  be  surmounted,  before  the  Com- 
mon Law  of  England  can  acknowledge  the  East  India  Company's  Asi- 
atic affairs  to  be  a  subject  matter  oi  prerogative,  so  as  to  bring  it  with- 
in the  verge  of  English  jurisprudence.  It  is  a  very  anomalous  species 
of  power  and  property  which  is  held  by  the  East  India  Company. 
Our  English  prerogative  law  does  not  furnish  principles,  much  less 
precedents,  by  which  it  can  be  defined  or  adjusted.  Nothing  but  the 
eminent  dominion  of  Parliament  over  every  British  subject,  in  every 
concern,  and  in  every  circumstance  in  which  he  is  placed,  can  adjust 
this  new,  intricate  matter.  Parliament  may  act  wisely  or  unwisely, 
justly  or  unjustly  ;  but  Parliament  alone  is  competent  to  it. 
VOL.  II.  36 


562  MOTION  RELATIVE  TO  THE 

When  a  claim  was  asserted  to  the  India  territorial 
possessions  in  the  occupation  of  the  Company,  these 
possessions  were  not  claimed  as  parcel  of  his  Majesty's 
patrimonial  estate,  or  as  a  fruit  of  the  ancient  inher- 
itance of  his  crown :  they  were  claimed  for  the  pub- 
lic. And  when  agreements  were  made  with  the  East 
India  Company  concerning  any  composition  for  the 
holding,  or  any  participation  of  the  profits,  of  those 
territories,  the  agreement  was  made  with  the  public  ; 
and  the  preambles  of  the  several  acts  have  uniformly 
so  stated  it.  These  agreements  were  not  made  (even 
nominally)  with  his  Majesty,  but  with  Parliament : 
and  the  bills  making  and  establishing  such  agree- 
ments always  originated  in  this  House  ;  which  appro- 
priated the  money  to  await  the  disposition  of  Parlia- 
ment, without  the  ceremony  of  previous  consent  from 
the  crown  even  so  much  as  suggested  by  any  of  his 
ministers :  which  previous  consent  is  an  observance 
of  decorum,  not  indeed  of  strict  right,  but  generally 
paid,  when  a  new  appropriation  takes  place  in  any 
part  of  his  Majesty's  prerogative  revenues. 

In  pursuance  of  a  right  thus  uniformly  recognized 
and  uniformly  acted  on,  when  Parliament  undertook 
the  reformation  of  the  East  India  Company  in  1773, 
a  commission  was  appointed,  as  tlie  commission  in  the 
late  bill  was  appointed  ;  and  it  was  made  to  continue 
for  a  term  of  years,  as  the  commission  in  the  late  bill 
was  to  continue  ;  all  the  commissioners  were  named 
in  Parliament,  as  in  the  late  bill  they  were  named. 
As  they  received,  so  they  held  their  offices,  wholly 
independent  of  the  crown ;  they  held  them  for  a 
fixed  term ;  they  were  not  removable  by  an  address 
of  eitlier  House  or  even  of  both  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment, a  precaution  observed  in  the  late  bill  relative 


SPEECH   FROM    THE   THRONE.  563 

to  the  commissioners  proposed  therein ;  nor  were 
they  bound  by  the  strict  rules  of  proceeding  which 
reguLated  and  restrained  the  hite  commissioners 
against  all  possible  abuse  of  a  power  which  could 
not  fail  of  being  diligently  and  zealously  watched  l)y 
the  ministers  of  the  crown,  and  the  proprietors  of  the 
stock,  as  well  as  by  Parliament.  Their  proceedings 
were,  in  that  bill,  directed  to  be  of  such  a  nature  as 
easily  to  subject  them  to  the  strictest  revision  of  both, 
in  case  of  any  malversation. 

In  the  year  1780,  an  act  of  Parliament  again  made 
provision  for  the  government  of  tliose  territories  for 
another  four  years,  without  any  sort  of  reference  to 
prerogative  ;  nor  was  the  least  objection  taken  at  tlie 
second,  more  than  at  the  first  of  those  periods,  as  if 
an  infringement  had  been  made  upon  the  rights  of 
the  crown  :  yet  his  Majesty's  ministers  have  thought 
fit  to  represent  the  late  commission  as  an  entire  inno- 
vation on  the  Constitution,  and  the  setting  up  a  new 
order  and  estate  in  the  nation,  tending  to  the  subver- 
sion of  the  monarchy  itself. 

If  the  government  of  the  East  Indies,  other  than 
by  his  Majesty's  prerogative,  be  in  effect  a  fourth  or- 
der in  the  commonwealth,  this  order  has  long  existed  ; 
because  the  East  India  Company  has  for  many  years 
enjoyed  it  in  the  fullest  extent,  and  does  at  this  day 
enjoy  the  whole  administration  of  those  provinces, 
and  the  patronage  to  offices  throughout  that  great 
empire,  except  as  it  is  controlled  by  act  of  Parlia- 
ment. 

It  was  the  ill  condition  and  ill  administration  of 
the  Company's  affairs  which  induced  this  House 
(merely  as  a  temporary  establislnnent)  to  vest  tlic 
same  powers  which  the  Company  did  before  possess. 


564  MOTION  RELATIVE  TO  THE 

(and  no  other,)  for  a  limited  time,  and  under  very 
strict  directions,  in  proper  hands,  until  they  could  be 
restored,  or  further  provision  made  concerning  them. 
It  was  therefore  no  creation  whatever  of  a  new  power, 
but  the  removal  of  an  old  power,  long  since  created, 
and  then  existing,  from  the  management  of  those 
persons  who  had  manifestly  and  dangerously  abused 
their  trust.  This  House,  which  well  knows  the  Par- 
liamentary origin  of  all  the  Company's  powers  and 
privileges,  and  is  not  ignorant  or  negligent  of  the 
authority  which  may  vest  those  powers  and  priv- 
ileges in  others,  if  justice  and  the  public  safety  so 
require,  is  conscious  to  itself  that  it  no  more  creates 
a  new  order  in  the  state,  by  making  occasional 
trustees  for  the  direction  of  the  Company,  than  it 
originally  did  in  giving  a  much  more  permanent 
trust  to  the  Directors  or  to  the  General  Court  of  that 
body.  The  monopoly  of  the  East  India  Company 
was  a  derogation  from  the  general  freedom  of  trade 
belonging  to  his  Majesty's  people.  The  powers  of 
government,  and  of  peace  and  war,  are  parts  of  pre- 
rogative of  the  highest  order.  Of  our  competence  to 
restrain  the  rights  of  all  his  subjects  by  act  of  Par- 
liament, and  to  vest  those  high  and  eminent  prerog- 
atives even  in  a  particular  company  of  merchants, 
there  has  been  no  question.  We  beg  leave  most 
humbly  to  claim  as  our  right,  and  as  a  right  which 
this  House  has  always  used,  to  frame  such  bills  for 
the  regulation  of  that  commerce,  and  of  the  terri- 
tories held  by  the  East  India  Company,  and  every- 
thing relating  to  them,  as  to  our  discretion  shall 
seem  fit ;  and  we  assert  and  maintain  that  therein 
we  follow,  and  do  not  innovate  on,  the  Constitution. 
That  his  Majesty's  ministers,  misled  by  their  am- 


SPEECH    FROM    THE   THRONE.  *     565 

bition,  have  endeavored,  if  possible,  to  form  a  faction 
in  the  country  against  the  popular  part  of  the  Consti- 
tution ;  and  have  therefore  thought  proper  to  add  to 
their  slanderous  accusation  against  a  House  of  Par- 
liament, relative  to  his  Majesty's  prerogative,  another 
of  a  different  nature,  calculated  for  the  purpose  of 
raising  fears  and  jealousies  among  the  corporate  bod- 
ies of  the  kingdom,  and  of  persuading  uninformed 
persons  belonging  to  those  corporations  to  look  to 
and  to  make  addresses  to  them,  as  protectors  of  their 
rights,  under  their  several  charters,  from  the  designs 
which  they,  without  any  ground,  charged  the  then 
House  of  Commons  to  have  formed  against  charters 
in  general.  For  this  purpose  they  have  not  scrupled 
to  assert  that  the  exertion  of  his  Majesty's  preroga- 
tive in  the  late  precipitate  change  in  his  administra- 
tion, and  the  dissolution  of  the  late  Parliament,  were 
measures  adopted  in  order  to  rescue  the  people  and 
their  rights  out  of  the  hands  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, their  representatives. 

We  trust  that  his  Majesty's  subjects  are  not  yet  so 
far  deluded  as  to  believe  that  the  charters,  or  that 
any  other  of  their  local  or  general  privileges,  can 
have  a  solid  security  in  any  place  but  where  that 
security  has  always  been  looked  for,  and  always 
found,  —  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Miserable  and 
precarious  indeed  would  be  the  state  of  their  fran- 
chises, if  they  were  to  find  no  defence  but  from 
that  quarter  from  whence  they  have  always  been  at- 
tacked !  *     But  the  late  House  of  Commons,  in  pass- 

*  The  attempt  upon  charters  and  tlie  privileges  of  the  corporate 
bodies  of  the  kingdom  in  tlic  reigns  of  Charles  the  Second  and  James 
the  Second  was  made  by  the  crown.  It  was  carried  on  by  the  ordi- 
nary course  of  law,  in  courts  instituted  for  the  security  of  the  prop- 


568    •  MOTION   RELATIVE    TO    THE 

ing  that  bill,  made  no  attack  upon  any  powers  or  . 
privileges,  except  such  as  a  House  of  Commons  has 
frequently  attacked,  and  will  attack,  (and  they  trust, 
in  the  end,  with  their  wonted  success,)  —  that  is,  upon 
those  which  are  corruptly  and  oppressively  adminis- 

erty  and  franchises  of  the  people.  This  attempt  made  by  the  a-ozvn 
was  attended  with  complete  success.  The  corporate  rights  of  the  city 
of  London,  and  of  all  the  companies  it  contains,  were  by  solemn  judg- 
ment of  law  declared  forfeited,  and  all  their  franchises,  privileges, 
properties,  and  estates  were  of  course  seized  into  the  hands  of  the 
crown.  The  injury  was  from  the  crown :  the  redress  was  by  Parlia- 
ment. A  bill  was  brought  into  the  House  of  Commons,  by  Avhich  the 
judgment  against  the  city  of  London,  and  against  the  companies, 
was  reversed :  and  this  bill  passed  the  House  of  Lords  Avithout  dhy 
complaint  of  trespass  on  tlieir  jurisdiction,  although  tlie  bill  was  ibr  a 
reversal  of  a  judgment  in  law.  By  this  act,  which  is  in  the  second  of 
William  and  Mary,  chap.  8,  the  question  of  forfeiture  of  that  charter 
is  forever  taken  out  of  the  power  of  any  court  of  law :  no  cognizance 
can  be  taken  of  it  except  in  Parliament. 

Although  the  act  above  mentioned  has  declared  the  judgment 
against  the  corpoi'ation  of  London  to  be  illegal,  yet  Blackstone 
makes  no  scruple  of  asserting,  that,  "  perhaps,  in  strictness  of  law, 
the  proceedings  in  most  of  them  [the  Quo  Warranto  causes]  were 
sufficiently  regular,"  leaving  it  in  doubt,  whether  this  regularity  did 
not  apply  to  the  corporation  of  London,  as  well  as  to  any  of  the  rest ; 
and  he  seems  to  blame  the  proceeding  (as  most  blamable  it  was)  not 
so  much  on  account  of  illegality  as  for  the  crown's  having  employed 
a  legal  proceeding  for  political  purposes.  He  calls  it  "an  exertion 
of  an  act  of  law  for  the  purposes  of  the  state." 

The  same  security  which  was  given  to  the  city  of  London  would 
have  been  extended  to  all  the  corporations,  if  the  House  of  Commons 
could  have  prevailed.  But  the  bill  for  that  purpose  passed  but  by  a 
majority  of  one  in  the  Lords;  and  it  was  entirely  lost  by  a  proroga- 
tion, which  is  the  act  of  the  crown.  Small,  indeed,  was  the  security 
which  the  corporation  of  London  enjoyed  before  the  act  of  William 
and  Mary,  and  which  all  the  other  corporations,  secured  by  no  stat- 
ute, enjoy  at  this  hour,  if  strict  law  was  employed  against  them. 
The  use  of  strict  law  has  always  been  rendered  very  delicate  by  the 
same  means  by  which  the  almost  unmeasured  legal  powers  residing 


SPEECH   FROM   THE   THRONE.  5G7 

tered ;  and  this  House  do  faithfully  assure  his  Maj- 
esty, that  we  will  correct,  and,  if  necessary  for  the 
purpose,  as  far  as  in  us  lies,  will  wholly  destroy,  every 
species  of  power  and  authority  exercised  by  British 
subjects  to  the  oppression,  wrong,  and  detriment  of 

(and  in  many  instances  dangerously  residing)  in  the  crown  are  kept 
within  due  bounds :  I  mean,  that  strong  superintending  power  in  the 
House  of  Commons  wliieh  inconsiderate  people  have  been  prevailed 
un  to  condemn  as  trenching  on  prerogative.  Strict  law  is  by  no 
means  such  a  friend  to  the  rights  of  the  subject  as  they  have  been 
taught  to  believe.  They  wiio  have  been  most  conversant  in  this 
kind  of  learning  will  be  most  sensible  of  the  danger  of  submitting 
corporate  rights  of  high  political  importance  to  these  subordinate 
tribunals.  The  general  heads  of  law  on  that  subject  are  vulgar  and 
trivial.  On  them  there  is  not  much  question.  But  it  is  far  from 
easy  to  determine  what  special  acts,  or  what  special  neglect  of  action, 
shall  subject  corporations  to  a  forfeiture.  There  is  so  much  laxity 
in  this  doctrine,  that  great  room  is  left  for  favor  or  prejudice,  which 
might  give  to  the  crown  an  entire  dominion  over  those  corporations. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  every  subordinate 
corporate  right  ought  to  be  subject  to  control,  to  superior  direction, 
and  even  to  forfeiture  upon  just  cause.  In  this  reason  and  law  agree. 
In  every  judgment  given  on  a  corporate  right  of  great  political  im- 
portance, the  policy  and  prudence  make  no  small  part  of  the  ques- 
tion. To  these  considerations  a  court  of  law  is  not  competent;  and, 
indeed,  an  attempt  at  the  least  intermixture  of  such  ideas  with  the 
matter  of  law  could  have  no  other  effect  than  wholly  to  corrupt  the 
judicial  character  of  the  court  in  which  such  a  cause  should  come  to 
be  tried.  It  is  besides  to  be  remarked,  that,  if,  in  virtue  of  a  legal 
process,  a  forfeiture  should  be  adjudged,  the  court  of  law  has  no 
power  to  modify  or  mitigate.  The  whole  franchise  is  annihilated, 
and  the  corporate  property  goes  into  the  hands  of  the  crown.  They 
who  hold  the  new  doctrines  concerning  the  power  of  the  House  of 
Commons  ought  well  to  consider  in  such  a  case  by  what  means  the 
corporate  rights  could  be  revived,  or  the  property  could  be  recovered 
out  of  the  hands  of  the  crown.  But  Parliament  can  do  what  the 
courts  neither  can  do  nor  ought  to  attempt.  Parliament  is  compe- 
tent to  give  due  weight  to  all  political  considerations.  It  may  modify, 
it  may  mitigate,  and  it  may  render  perfectly  secure,  all  that  it  does 


568  MOTION   RELATIVE    TO    THE 

the  people,  and  to  the  impoverishment  and  desolation 
of  the  countries  subject  to  it. 

Tlie  propagators  of  the  calumnies  against  that 
House  of  Parliament  have  been  indefatigable  in  ex- 
aggerating  the   supposed   injury  done   to   the  East 

not  think  fit  to  take  away.  It  is  not  likely  that  Parliament  will  ever 
draw  to  itself  the  cognizance  of  questions  concerning  ordinary  corpo- 
rations, farther  than  to  protect  them,  in  case  attempts  are  made  to  in- 
duce a  forfeiture  of  their  franchises. 

The  case  of  the  East  India  Company  is  diflfcrent  even  from  that 
of  the  greatest  of  these  corporations.  No  monopoly  of  trade,  beyond 
their  own  limits,  is  vested  in  the  corporate  body  of  any  town  or  city 
m  the  kingdom.  Even  within  these  limits  the  monopoly  is  not  gen- 
eral. Tiie  Company  has  the  monopoly  of  the  trade  of  half  the  world. 
The  first  corporation  of  the  kingdom  has  for  the  object  of  its  juris- 
diction only  a  few  matters  of  subordinate  police.  The  East  India 
Company  governs  an  empire,  tlu-ough  all  its  concerns  and  all  its 
departments,  from  the  lowest  office  of  economy  to  the  highest  councils 
of  state,  —  at-  empire  to  which  Great  Britain  is  in  comparison  but  a 
respectable  province.  To  leave  these  concerns  without  superior  cog- 
nizance would  be  madness;  to  leave  them  to  be  judged  in  the  courts 
below,  on  the  principles  of  a  confined  jurisprudence,  would  be  folly.  It 
is  well,  if  the  whole  legislative  power  is  competent  to  the  correction  of 
abuses  which  are  commensurate  to  the  immensity  of  the  object  they 
affect.  The  idea  of  an  al)solute  power  has,  indeed,  its  terrors ;  but 
that  objection  lies  to  every  Parliamentary  proceeding  ;  and  as  no  other 
can  regulate  the  abuses  of  such  a  charter,  it  is  fittest  that  sovereign  au- 
thority should  be  exercised,  where  it  is  most  likely  to  be  attended  with 
the  mosteftectual  correctives.  These  correctives  are  furnished  by  the 
nature  and  course  of  Parliamentary  proceedings,  and  by  the  infinitely 
diversified  characters  who  compose  the  two  Houses.  In  effect  and 
virtually,  they  form  a  vast  number,  variety,  and  succession  of  judges 
and  jurors.  The  fuhiess,  the  freedom,  and  publicity  of  discussion 
leaves  it  easy  to  distinguish  what  are  acts  of  power,  and  what  the  de- 
terminations of  equity  and  reason.  There  prejudice  corrects  prejudice, 
and  the  different  asperities  of  party  zeal  mitigate  and  neutralize  each 
other.  So  far  from  violence  being  the  general  characteristic  of  the 
proceedings  of  Parliament,  whatever  the  beginnings  of  any  Parlia- 
mentary process  may  b:;,  its  general  fault  in  the  end  is,  that  it  is  found 
incomplete  and  inefTretual. 


SPEECH    FROM    THE    THRONE.  569 

India  Company  by  the  suspension  of  the  authorities 
which  they  have  in  every  instance  abused,  —  as  if 
power  had  been  wrested  by  wrong  and  violence 
from  just  and  prudent  hands ;  but  they  have,  with 
equal  care,  concealed  the  weighty  grounds  and  rea- 
sons on  which  that  House  had  adopted  the  most 
moderate  of  all  possible  expedients  for  rescuing  the 
natives  of  India  from  oppression,  and  for  saving  the 
interests  of  the  real  and  honest  proprietors  of  their 
stock,  as  well  as  that  great  national,  commercial  con- 
cern, from  imminent  ruin. 

The  ministers  aforesaid  have  also  caused  it  to  be 
reported  that  the  House  of  Commons  have  confiscated 
the  property  of  the  East  India  Company.  It  is  the 
reverse  of  truth.  The  whole  management  was  a 
trust  for  Ihe  proprietors,  under  their  own  inspection, 
(and  it  was  so  provided  for  in  the  bill,)  and  under 
the  inspection  of  Parliament.  That  bill,  so  far  from 
confiscating  the  Company's  property,  was  the  only 
one  which,  for  several  years  past,  did  not,  in  some 
shape  or  other,  affect  their  property,  or  restrain  them 
in  the  disposition  of  it. 

It  is  proper  that  his  Majesty  and  all  his  people 
should  be  informed  that  the  House  of  Commons 
have  proceeded,  with  regard  to  the  East  India  Com- 
pany, with  a  degree  of  care,  circumspection,  and 
deliberation,  which  has  not  been  equalled  in  the  his- 
tory of  Parliamentary  proceedings.  For  sixteen  years 
the  state  and  condition  of  that  body  has  never  been 
wholly  out  of  their  view.  In  the  year  1767  the  House 
took  those  objects  into  consideration^  in  a  committee 
of  the  whole  House.  The  business  was  pursued  in 
the  following  year.  In  the  year  1772  two  committees 
were  appointed  for  the  same  purpose,  which  exam- 


570  MOTION   RELATIVE   TO    THE 

ined  into  their  aifairs  with  much  diligence,  and  made 
very  ample  reports.  In  the  year  1773  the  proceed- 
ings were  carried  to  an  act  of  Parliament,  which 
proved  ineffectual  to  its  purpose.  The  oppressions 
and  abuses  in  India  have  since  rather  increased  than 
diminished,  on  account  of  the  greatness  of  the  temp- 
tations, and  convenience  of  the  opportunities,  which 
got  the  better  of  the  legislative  provisions  calculated 
against  ill  practices  then  in  their  beginnings ;  inso- 
much that,  in  1781,  two  committees  were  again  insti- 
tuted, who  have  made  seventeen  reports.  It  was  upon 
the  most  minute,  exact,  and  laborious  collection  and 
discussion  of  facts,  that  the  late  House  of  Commons 
proceeded  in  the  reform  which  they  attempted  in  the 
administration  of  India,  but  which  has  been  frustrated 
by  ways  and  means  the  most  dislionorable  to  his  Maj- 
esty's government,  and  the  most  pernicious  to  the 
Constitution  of  this  kingdom.  His  Majesty  was  so 
sensible  of  the  disorders  in  the  Company's  adminis- 
tration, that  the  consideration  of  that  subject  was  no 
less  than  six  times  recommended  to  this  House  in 
speeches  from  the  throne. 

The  result  of  the  Parliamentary  inquiries  has  been, 
that  the  East  India  Company  was  found  totally  cor- 
rupted, and  totally  perverted  from  the  purposes  of 
its  institution,  whether  political  or  commercial  ;  that 
the  powers  of  war  and  peace  given  by  the  charter 
had  been  abused,  by  kindling  hostilities  in  every 
quarter  for  the  purposes  of  rapine ;  that  almost  all 
the  treaties  of  peace  they  have  made  have  only  given 
cause  to  so  many  breaches  of  public  faith  ;  that  coun- 
tries once  the  most  flourishing  are  reduced  to  a  state 
of  indigence,  decay,  and  depopulation,  to  the  diminu- 
tion of  our  strength,  and  to  the  infinite  dishonor  of 


SPEECH    PROM    THE    THRONE.  571 

our  national  character ;  that  the  laws  of  this  king- 
dom are  notoriously,  and  almost  in  every  instance, 
despised ;  that  the  servants  of  the  Company,  by  the 
purchase  of  qualifications  to  vote  in  the  General 
Court,  and,  at  length,  by  getting  the  Company  itself 
deeply  in  their  debt,  liave  obtained  the  entire  and 
absolute  mastery  in  tlie  body  by  whicli  they  ought  to 
have  been  ruled  and  coerced.  Thus  tlieir  malversa- 
tions in  office  are  supported,  instead  of  being  checked 
by  the  Company.  The  whole  of  the  affairs  of  that  body 
are  reduced  to  a  most  perilous  situation ;  and  many 
millions  of  innocent  and  deserving  men,  wlio  are  un- 
der the  protection  of  tliis  nation,  and  who  ought  to  be 
protected  by  it,  are  oppressed  by  a  most  despotic  and 
rapacious  tyranny.  Tlie  Company  and  their  ser- 
vants, having  strengthened  themselves  by  this  confed- 
eracy, set  at  defiance  the  authority  and  admonitions 
of  tliis  House  employed  to  reform  them  ;  and  when 
this  House  had  selected  certain  principal  delinquents, 
whom  they  declared  it  the  duty  of  the  Company  to 
recall,  the  Company  held  out  its  legal  privileges 
against  all  reformation,  positively  refused  to  recall 
them,  and  supported  those  who  had  fallen  under  the 
just  censure  of  this  House  with  new  and  stronger 
marks  of  countenance  and  approbation. 

Tlie  late  House,  discovering  the  reversed  situation 
of  the  Company,  by  which  the  nominal  servants  are 
really  the  masters,  and  the  offenders  are  become  their 
own  judges,  thought  fit  to  examine  into  the  state  of 
their  commerce ;  and  they  have  also  discovered  that 
tlieir  commercial  affairs  are  in  the  greatest  disorder ; 
that  their  debts  have  accumulated  beyond  any  pres- 
ent or  obvious  future  means  of  payment,  at  least 
under  the  actual  administration  of  their  affairs  ;  that 


572  MOTION    RELATIVE   TO    THE 

this  condition  of  the  East  India  Company  has  begun 
to  affect  the  sinking  fund  itself,  on  which  tlie  public 
credit  of  the  kingdom  rests,  —  a  million  and  upwards 
being  due  to  the  customs,  which  that  House  of 
Commons  whose  intentions  towards  the  Company 
have  been  so  grossly  misrepresented  were  indulgent 
enough  to  respite.  And  thus,  instead  of  confiscating 
their  property,  the  Company  received  witliout  inter- 
est (which  in  such  a  case  had  been  before  charged) 
the  use  of  a  very  large  sum  of  the  public  money. 
The  revenues  are  under  the  peculiar  care  of  this 
House,  not  only  as  the  revenues  originate  from  us, 
but  as,  on  every  failuT*^.  of  the  funds  set  apart  for  the 
support  of  the  national  credit,  or  to  provide  for  the 
national  strength  and  safety,  the  task  of  supplying 
every  deficiency  falls  upon  his  Majesty's  faithful 
Commons,  this  House  must,  in  effect,  tax  the  people. 
The  House,  therefore,  at  every  moment,  hicurs  the 
hazard  of  becoming  obnoxious  to  its  constituents. 

The  enemies  of  the  late  House  of  Commons  re- 
solved, if  possible,  to  bring  on  that  event.  They 
therefore  endeavored  to  misrepresent  the  provident 
means  adopted  by  the  House  of  Commons  for  keeping 
off  this  invidious  necessity,  as  an  attack  on  the  rights 
of  the  East  India  Company  :  for  they  well  knew,  that, 
on  the  one  hand,  if,  for  want  of  proper  regulation  and 
relief,  the  Company  shoiild  become  insolvent,  or  even 
stop  payment,  the  national  credit  and  commerce 
would  sustain  a  heavy  blow ;  and  that  calamity 
would  be  justly  imputed  to  Parliament,  which,  after 
such  long  inquiries,  and  such  frequent  admonitions 
from  his  Majesty,  had  neglected  so  essential  and  so 
urgent  an  article  of  their  duty :  on  the  other  hand, 
they  knew,  that,  wholly  corrupted  as  the  Company  is, 


SPEECH   FROM   THE   THRONE.  573 

nothing  effectual  could  be  done  to  preserve  that  in- 
terest from  ruin,  without  talcing  for  a  time  the  na- 
tional objects  of  their  trust  out  of  their  hands  ;  and 
tlien  a  cry  would  be  industriously  raised  against  the 
House  of  Commons,  as  depriving  Britisli  subjects  of 
their  legal  privileges.  Tlie  restraint,  being  plain  and 
simple,  must  be  easily  understood  by  those  who  would 
be  brought  with  great  difficulty  to  comprehend  the 
intricate  detail  of  matters  of  fact  which  rendered  this 
suspension  of  the  administration  of  India  absolutely 
necessary  on  motives  of  justice,  of  policy,  of  public 
honor,  and  public  safety. 

The  House  of  Commons  had  not  been  able  to  de- 
vise a  method  by  which  the  redress  of  grievances 
could  be  effected  through  the  authors  of  those  griev- 
ances ;  nor  could  they  imagine  how  corruptions  could 
be  purified  by  the  corrupters  and  the  corrupted  ;  nor 
do  we  now  conceive  how  any  reformation  can  proceed 
from  the  known  abettors  and  supporters  of  the  persons 
who  have  been  guilty  of  the  misdemeanors  which  Par- 
liament has  reprobated,  and  who  for  their  own  ill  pur- 
poses have  given  countenance  to  a  false  and  delusive 
state  of  the  Company's  affairs,  fabricated  to  mislead 
Parliament  and  to  impose  upon  the  nation.* 

Your  Commons  feel,  with  adjust  resentment,  the  in- 
adequate estimate  which  your  ministers  have  formed 

*  The  purpose  of  the  misrepresentation  being  now  completely  an- 
swered, there  is  no  doubt  but  the  committee  in  this  Parliament,  ap- 
pointed by  the  ministers  themselves,  will  justify  the  grounds  upon 
which  the  last  Parliament  proceeded,  and  will  lay  open  to  the  world 
the  dreadful  state  of  the  Company's  affairs,  and  the  grossness  of  their 
own  calumnies  upon  this  head.  By  delay  the  new  assembly  is  come 
into  the  disgraceful  situation  of  allowing  a  dividend  of  eight  per  cent 
by  act  of  Parliament,  without  the  least  matter  before  them  to  justify 
the  granting  of  any  dividend  at  all. 


574  MOTION    RELATIVE   TO    THE 

of  the  importance  of  this  great  concern.  They  call 
on  us  to  act  upon  the  principles  of  those  who  have 
not  inquired  into  the  subject,  and  to  condemn  those 
who  with  the  most  laudable  diligence  have  examined 
and  scrutinized  every  part  of  it.  The  deliberations 
of  Parliament  have  been  broken ;  the  season  of  the 
year  is  unfavorable ;  many  of  us  are  new  members, 
who  must  be  wholly  unacquainted  with  the  subject, 
wliich  lies  remote  from  the  ordinary  course  of  general 
information. 

We  are  cautioned  against  an  infringement  of  the 
Constitution ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  know  what  the 
secret  advisers  of  the  crown,  who  have  driven  out 
the  late  ministers  for  their  conduct  in  Parliament, 
and  have  dissolved  the  late  Parliament  for  a  pretend- 
ed attack  upon  prerogative,  will  consider  as  such  an 
infringement.  We  are  not  furnished  with  a  rule, 
the  observance  of  which  can  make  us  safe  from  the 
resentment  of  the  crown,  even  by  an  implicit  obe- 
dience to  the  dictates  of  the  ministers  who  have 
advised  that  speech ;  we  know  not  how  soon  those 
ministers  may  be  disavowed,  and  how  soon  the  mem- 
bers of  this  House,  for  our  very  agreement  with  them, 
may  be  considered  as  objects  of  his  Majesty's  dis- 
pleasure. Until  by  his -Majesty's  goodness  and  wis- 
dom the  late  example  is  completely  done  away,  we 
are  not  free. 

We  are  well  aware,  in  providing  for  the  affairs  of 
the  East,  with  what  an  adult  strength  of  abuse,  and 
of  wealth  and  influence  growing  out  of  that  abuse, 
his  Majesty's  Commons  had,  in  the  last  Parliament, 
and  still  have,  to  struggle.  We  are  sensible  that  the 
influence  of  tliat  wealth,  in  a  much  larger  degree 
and  measure  than  at  any  former  period,  may  have 


SPEECH   FROM   THE   THRONE.  575 

penetrated  into  the  very  quarter  from  whence  alone 
any  real  reformation  can  be  expected.* 

If,  therefore,  in  the  arduous  affiiirs  recommended 
to  us,  our  proceedings  sliould  be  ill  adapted,  feeble, 
and  ineffectual,  —  if  no  delinquency  should  be  pre- 
vented, and  no  delinquent  should  be  called  to  ac- 
count, —  if  every  person  should  be  caressed,  promoted, 
and  raised  in  power,  in  proportion  to  the  enormity  of 
his  offences, — if  no  relief  should  be  given  to  any  of 
the  natives  unjustly  dispossessed  of  their  rights,  ju- 
risdictions, and  properties,  —  if  no  cruel  and  unjust 
exactions  should  be  forborne,  —  if  the  source  of  no 
peculation  or  oppressive  gain  should  be  cut  off,  —  if, 
by  the  omission  of  tlie  opportunities  that  were  in  our 
hands,  our  Indian  empire  should  fall  into  ruin  irre- 
trievable, and  in  its  fall  crush  the  credit  and  over- 

*  This  will  be  evident  to  those  who  consider  the  nuniber  and  de- 
scription of  Directors  and  servants  of  the  East  India  Company 
chosen  into  the  present  Parliament.  The  light  in  which  the  present 
ministers  hold  the  labors  of  the  Honse  of  Commons  in  searching 
into  the  disorders  in  the  Indian  administration,  and  all  its  endeavors 
for  the  reformation  of  the  govei-nment  there,  without  any  distinction 
of  times,  or  of  the  persons  concerned,  will  appear  from  the  following 
extract  from  a  speech  of  the  present  Lord  Chancellor.  After  making 
a  high-flown  panegyric  on  those  whom  the  House  of  Commons  had 
condemned  by  their  resolutions,  he  said  :  —  "  Let  us  not  be  misled  by 
reports  from  committees  of  another  House,  to  which,  I  again  repeat, 
/  pay  as  miich  attention  as  I  icould  do  to  the  hislorij  of  Robinson  Crusoe. 
Let  the  conduct  of  the  East  India  Company  be  fairly  and  fully  in- 
quired into.  Let  it  be  acquitted  or  condemned  by  evidence  brought 
to  the  bar  of  the  House.  Without  entering  very  deeply  into  the 
subject,  let  me  reply  in  a  few  words  to  an  observation  which  fell  from 
a  noble  and  learned  lord,  that  the  Company's  finances  arc  distressed, 
and  that  they  owe  at  this  moment  a  million  sterling  to  the  nation. 
When  such  a  charge  is  brought,  will  Parliament  in  its  justice  forget 
that  the  Company  is  restricted  from  employing  that  credit  whiih  its 
i/reat  and Jlourisldny  situation  gives  to  it  ?  " 


576     MOTIOx-^r   RELATIVE   TO    SPEECH    FROM   THRONE. 

whelm  the  revenues  of  this  country,  —  we  stand 
acquitted  to  our  honor  and  to  our  conscience,  who 
have  reluctantly  seen  the  weightiest  interests  of  our 
country,  at  times  the  most  critical  to  its  dignity  and 
safety,  rendered  the  sport  of  the  inconsiderate  and 
unmeasured  ambition  of  individuals,  and  by  that 
means  the  wisdom  of  his  Majesty's  government  de- 
graded in  the  public  estimation,  and  the  policy  and 
character  of  this  renowned  nation  rendered  contempt- 
ible in  the  eyes  of  all  Europe. 

It  passed  in  the  negative. 


END    OF   VOL.   n. 


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